HSBC really are worse than useless. They aren’t connected.
TSB can be dicks and their call centre is bad, but they’re OK. Just keep some movement in the account and let them know if you’re ‘travelling’, and they’re fine.
[quote=“Ermintrude”]+1 for the HSBC thing not really working. Tried in more than one country. HSBC have an ‘English service’, but they are real fking clowns, the Taiwan customer service phoneline. Actually, maybe they are just trying to provide an authentic British phonebanking service?
Make sure you have your internet banking and phone banking set up in Britain, then regularly transfer cash back to that account to pay for stuff. Or, use your internet banking in the UK to transfer money to your account in Taiwan. Usually the best way.[/quote]
are you saying you can set up a hsbc account back home in uk, open a taiwan hsbc account and send the money over the internet banking? that would be really handy if so. how long does it take and what are the charges? i have only had to make one transfer so far but family was needed on the other side to do it, and it took the best part of a month.
nuit: that my friend is a grand idea! overseas free transfers… could answer a lot of problems. only one of the banks in the link seems do able tho… looking into it!
I think you can do that from any bank account supporting internet banking in Europe, they are not as parenoid as Taiwanese banks concerning international transfers.
But free? Don’t think so.
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“I have only had to make one transfer so far but family was needed on the other side to do it, and it took the best part of a month.” -i couldn’t use internet banking to conveniently do it with my current bank 
phone confirmation and hassles were needed
I bank with HSBC expat (Jersey) and HSBC Taiwan.
I’ve found fund transfers between the two to not be a problem, once you set up ‘‘world-view’’ on your internet banking you can transfer between the two instantaneously (I understand you can do this with any HSBC accounts, so you should be able to set it up between your HSBC UK and Taiwan accounts also).
HSBC Taiwan, I’ve found their phone support a little lacking, however the branches are clean, well appointed, hardly ever need to cue, the staff are super friendly (if phone support fails, I can usually sort out my problems in-branch quick smart), most speak English and I had no problems getting a home loan through them at a good interest rate and with minimal hassle.
Yes, they are not 100% linked (HSBC Taiwan can’t see my expat account) but I think of that as a feature, I’m a very private person who prefers to compartmentalize things anyway, money is no different.
Overall I’m very happy with them and don’t see any reason to change…
I had funds transferred from a normal Taiwan Bank account to my Internet account in Belgium … taking less than 24 hours to show up in my account or any account I transferred money to in Belgium from Taiwan.
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[quote=“tmz_99”]I bank with HSBC expat (Jersey) and HSBC Taiwan.
I’ve found fund transfers between the two to not be a problem, once you set up ‘‘world-view’’ on your internet banking you can transfer between the two instantaneously (I understand you can do this with any HSBC accounts, so you should be able to set it up between your HSBC UK and Taiwan accounts also).
HSBC Taiwan, I’ve found their phone support a little lacking, however the branches are clean, well appointed, hardly ever need to cue, the staff are super friendly (if phone support fails, I can usually sort out my problems in-branch quick smart), most speak English and I had no problems getting a home loan through them at a good interest rate and with minimal hassle.
Yes, they are not 100% linked (HSBC Taiwan can’t see my expat account) but I think of that as a feature, I’m a very private person who prefers to compartmentalize things anyway, money is no different.
Overall I’m very happy with them and don’t see any reason to change…[/quote]
sounds great. all i am really after is an account back home (that i will be getting paid into) with the ability to send money to an account here as quick as possible, instantaneous sounds great. how are the transfer fees?
nevermind, i checked the website. for the basic account you cannot use global view -which might throw the convenient online transfer out of the window, it can take up to 4 days to transfer and it will cost £17 for up to £1000. not totally what i want but its better than my current situation.
[quote=“Lros”][quote=“tmz_99”]I bank with HSBC expat (Jersey) and HSBC Taiwan.
I’ve found fund transfers between the two to not be a problem, once you set up ‘‘world-view’’ on your internet banking you can transfer between the two instantaneously (I understand you can do this with any HSBC accounts, so you should be able to set it up between your HSBC UK and Taiwan accounts also).
HSBC Taiwan, I’ve found their phone support a little lacking, however the branches are clean, well appointed, hardly ever need to cue, the staff are super friendly (if phone support fails, I can usually sort out my problems in-branch quick smart), most speak English and I had no problems getting a home loan through them at a good interest rate and with minimal hassle.
Yes, they are not 100% linked (HSBC Taiwan can’t see my expat account) but I think of that as a feature, I’m a very private person who prefers to compartmentalize things anyway, money is no different.
Overall I’m very happy with them and don’t see any reason to change…[/quote]
sounds great. all I am really after is an account back home (that i will be getting paid into) with the ability to send money to an account here as quick as possible, instantaneous sounds great. how are the transfer fees?
nevermind, i checked the website. for the basic account you cannot use global view -which might throw the convenient online transfer out of the window, it can take up to 4 days to transfer and it will cost £17 for up to £1000. not totally what I want but its better than my current situation.[/quote]
May be worth paying the Premier fee (not sure how much it is), then you get global view and your global transactions between global view accounts don’t incur a fee (I don’t think, may be worth checking on)… if it’s 17 quid per transaction you’d probably get your fees worth back over a year.
yea i checked out the others. premier would be steller if it wasn;t for the requirements. maybe it can be done in future.