Inflexible HSBC

tparkin

I am in the process of transferring my current account from HSBC to A&L, after I finally got hacked off enough with them to take some action.

Everything has gone well with A&L so far. The only stumbling block has been A&L's refusal to match our HSBC overdraft, which is £2,500. Unfortunately, due to some unexpected expenses during the last quarter of 2005 (and due to not discovering MSE until Christmas) we were unable to provide a bank statement showing our account in credit for at least 2 days in any of the last 3 months.

To work around this, we have kept open the HSBC account with my salary going into it, and transferred the bills to A&L. I intend to transfer a small sum from HSBC to A&L initially to max out the 0% overdraft, and then a monthly amount to just cover the bills, leaving my surplus salary in the HSBC account to eventually pay off the overdraft.

However, I hit a stumbling block with HSBC's online banking. When I tried to set up a standing order to pay A&L, I discovered that their system will only accept 8 digit account numbers - my A&L account has 9 digits. I rang their telephone banking service to ask if they could do it for me. The answer was no, they are also restricted to 8 digit account numbers :mad:

I am now faced with having to go into a branch and pick up a standing order form to set this up, which is a real hassle.

Another reason to dislike HSBC.

Dagobert

tparkin wrote:

However, I hit a stumbling block with HSBC's online banking. When I tried to set up a standing order to pay A&L, I discovered that their system will only accept 8 digit account numbers - my A&L account has 9 digits.

No, this is not HSBC's fault! Many [former] building societies operate 9-digit account numbers, which have to be converted to 8-digits plus sort code for BACS transfers.

You can derive sortcode and 8-digit account number from A&L's 9-digit account number as follows:

Example
123456789 -> sort code = 72-50-01, a/c no = 23456789

Both variations are displayed on page 1 of your cheque book.


Also, don't forget to make use of Alliance & Leicester's Recommend a Friend scheme to obtain their generous joining incentive! You will find more information on MSE's referral board.

tparkin

Thanks Dagobert.

If I have bothered to read the user guide that came when I set up the account, I would have found this information, i.e. drop the first digit to get your 8 digit account number :doh:

Confusingly, the cheque book states the 9-digit a/c number at the top of each cheque, and an 8-digit number with the LAST digit removed along the bottom I won't worry myself about this as long as the cheques work.