This why I find the “no fees” so amusing. There’s always a fee.
Well, the transfer is free, they never claimed free fx.
Yes, that’s always the case with any bank in HK.
I wrote about HSBC Taiwan though lol
Are there any HSBC accounts in Taiwan that you can apply for without their high minimum income/amount requirements for Advance and Premier accounts?
yes, the HSBC integrated account
Is it on here: Bank Accounts - HSBC TW
Same here 
Yes, NTD saving account.
I’m struggling with HSBC.
I’ve a Uk address & info but they say because I’m not resident I cannot open account.
Did anybody open an account regardless ?
You need to have an HSBC Premier account in another country first. Then, you can use the international account opening process. Then, you won’t need UK residency - it should be enough to say that you want to “save and invest” into the UK.
I didn’t even need a UK address - the Taiwan address was sufficient (they do however note that not all features will be available to international customers).
In my case, I sent them a slightly angry email that I am waiting for their call - then, someone called back within a couple of hours…
I remitted funds from HSBC HK to my hsbc Taiwan account today. Had to visit branch as amount more than can convert to nt$ online, then withdrew in cash. Of course they asked why such a large amount why not transfer. Explained why, all good.
They just called me out of the blue two days late and we were done after 4 minutes… 
Such a weird setup process
well, they called me a full week earlier than the appointment I booked haha.
Finally visited the branch today to register my E.SUN FCY account with HSBC.
However, the bank staff told me that they can only use a SWIFT transfer to transfer foreign currency within Taiwan. So I’d still need to pay the SWIFT fee at HSBC and ESUN if I transfer between them… 
not entirely correct, but I did expect such a reply given how niche this service is.
In Taiwan there is actually a quite extensive clearing network supporting also foreign currencies, called FISC (which also handles NTD transactions). Currencies supported are USD, EUR, JPY, AUD (no clue why) and even RMB!
Depending on the currency, you can settle domestically only if both sending and receiving institution participate for the domestic clearing of that currency.
You can find the list and infos here: 財金資訊股份有限公司-業務說明
HSBC does provide FISC domestic remittance only in USD, check the screenshot below from their tariff sheet:
They mentioned that if I call them to initiate the transfer (instead of using online banking), there won’t be an intermediary bank fee (USD 8). But they’ll still charge NT$200 transfer fee and the receiving bank might also charge a fee.
From what I understood, that would also apply if I transfer EUR - but after reading what you wrote, it might only work with USD…
I have never tried to be fair, so cannot give guidance, can only say what they write.
200NT to keep the USD whole is not too bad if you transfer big enough sums. Otherwise the trick of withdrawing the FCY at HSBC and then depositing at Esun (with the FCY withdrawal and deposit fees) but still work (although if find it difficult to justify).
in theory it should, but as always in TW, who knows?
Yeah, as soon as my request to add my E.SUN account as a designated account at HSBC has been processed (will take some days because Taiwan 
), I’ll try it out and report back!