HSBC Changing all Bank accounts

JPizzle

Ice wrote: »

now he gets a nice new shiny visa debit card...

I know I've asked this a fair few times now, but maybe because of these new changes, it may be clearer now. Do HSBC now issue Visa Debits over Maestro?

Maybe ShelfStacker could help me here too?;)

I can't find the full t&c's on the site, and the debit card page still takes me to info. about Maestro, Solo and Mastercard PayPass.

Thanks

Lokolo

I seem to remember they are starting in December this year, and it will be a phase through next few years until 2010.

RedPlanet_2

I got the letter too, but am staying away from it. I don't think anyone has mentioned that these two new HSBC accounts may be fee free, but they also pay no interest at all when you're in credit.

According to Mervyn King (Governor of the Bank of England) inflation is expected to reach 5% by the end of the year. Over 10 years, 5% inflation will reduce the spending power of your money by 40%. Now imagine if you'd scooped up the money into a high interest account/ISA over 10 years - big difference!

InMyDreams

RedPlanet wrote: »

I got the letter too, but am staying away from it. I don't think anyone has mentioned that these two new HSBC accounts may be fee free, but they also pay no interest at all when you're in credit.

According to Mervyn King (Governor of the Bank of England) inflation is expected to reach 5% by the end of the year. Over 10 years, 5% inflation will reduce the spending power of your money by 40%. Now imagine if you'd scooped up the money into a high interest account/ISA over 10 years - big difference!

Yes, but it was only 0.1% before! It depends how you use your current account. The money in mine is what I intend on spending now, not in 10 years; that gets put into other savings accounts anyway.

Our HSBC account is joint and on my last tax return, I got to claim the tax back on half the interest. It came to about 8p. Even over 10 years that's not going to make a difference to me. In fact I'd rather get nil than 0.1% because it'll save me the time finding and inputting all the negligible figures onto my tax return!

I got the letter this week. It says that we will be transfered to the 'Advance' one because dh has his wages go in. This would be great because we're looking for a new regular saver at the moment. Except that dh's wages haven't been going in since the spring when we had to change our banking over to FD to get their mortgage. It says that this will be 'reviewed annually' though, but not sure when the first review would be, or what would happen to the regular saver when they find out. Wonder if I'd get away with waiting until they contact me and then starting a £500/month transfer from FD.

ShelfStacker_3

RedPlanet wrote: »

I got the letter too, but am staying away from it. I don't think anyone has mentioned that these two new HSBC accounts may be fee free, but they also pay no interest at all when you're in credit.

That's because they're current accounts. They pay no interest because they're intended just as a "resting area" before bills go out, money is spent etc.

According to Mervyn King (Governor of the Bank of England) inflation is expected to reach 5% by the end of the year. Over 10 years, 5% inflation will reduce the spending power of your money by 40%. Now imagine if you'd scooped up the money into a high interest account/ISA over 10 years - big difference!

Yes... but nobody is seriously suggesting you'd leave all your money in one of these accounts. They're for current spending only, and having a high interest rate on it when most money in them will be there for less than a month makes no sense. When I was with Alliance and Leicester on their 10% interest deal, all I got back from them was 50p each month - 60 quid over 10 years. Not particularly worth the effort, considering that any decent size of savings would earn you that over one year in a top paying cash ISA.

However, thank you for opening our eyes to the "swindle"... :rolleyes:

sutton111

do HSBC accept people with iffy credit on a normal account or is it only there basic account?

epsilondraconis

As yet we haven't received the letter from HSBC; however reading the previous posts it indicates that those paying in more than £500 per month benefit from:

An 8% Regular Saver product;
Free mobile banking;
Free identity theft assistance.

The question I have is, how is the 8% regular saving product described here, any different from the that HSBC 8% regular saving product that has been available for the last year or so. We have been saving with the 8% regular savings product for about 7 months now.

Do people think the two are the same and that it is being used in their literature to offset the fact that we will no longer be receiving any interest on our current accounts? (Which isn't a great loss to me anyway.)

ShelfStacker_3

ldavies wrote: »

The main difference between the 2 new current accounts is that on the standard current account, the statement frequency goes to quarterly from monthly and also you lose the cheque book.

This is because the accounts have such lower turnover, the cost of running them to the bank are high.

That's basically it. The current push is to get people to pay their salaries in, hence the bribes to do so.

I suppose there's also a secondary idea in play, that of stopping people opening current accounts purely to get access to the 8% Reg. Saver deal, never paying in anything other than what the standing order to the savings is and costing them money.

dougz_2

People here seem to have missed out a main difference with the new accounts is that, unless you qualify for the Advance account, they will now deny you the cheque guarantee function on your debit card (or the replacement when your current one runs out). You may still get cheques, but you cannot guarantee they will not bounce. Obviously it depends if you still use cheques much for this to bother you.

I also notice an extra catch with the 8% saver. Although you qualify for the Advance account merely for crediting £500 month from anywhere, the terms of the 8% specifically say you need to pay in your salary or pension. I don't know if, or how, they police that. I would be interested to hear has anyone kept the 8% while crediting other than salary?

Lokolo

Thats why I go for HSBC, I have never had any problems with them.

I highly doubt they want 'income' as the £500. I would think they want any regular amount which is above £500 will do. Well, I hope so anyway.