HSBC Currency Account Exorbitant Fees

2chairs

Hi all, has anyone else had this issue? I set up a EURO HSBC current account to receive and pay Euros within the EU because their website says they don't charge any fees on these Euro transfers. Today I transferred 10,000 Euros from my HSBC euro account to my FX trading account held with The Currency Cloud (a UK Euro bank account). I was shocked to find that a hefty fee of 31.50EUR was deducted. After 2 hours on the phone with them, going round in circles, they told me that the reason is that they routed the payments via two correspondent banks: HSBC Continental Europe and Barclays Bank.  I'm somewhat shocked that HSBC UK doesn't have a direct relationship with Barclays bank! I've asked for their list of correspondent banks and been told they can't give that to me but wondered if anyone else has experienced this. I'd understand if I was routing the funds to outer Mongolia but it's literally one UK bank to another. What are people's experience of this? 

pieroabcd

Starling Bank permits to have an Euro account alongside the GPB one (with its own Iban) with very small fees on money transfers (definitely *much* lower, I've never paid more than 3 euros). It also permits to have no fees on card transactions in Euro.

Hoenir

2chairs said:

Hi all, has anyone else had this issue? I set up a EURO HSBC current account to receive and pay Euros within the EU because their website says they don't charge any fees on these Euro transfers. Today I transferred 10,000 Euros from my HSBC euro account to my FX trading account held with The Currency Cloud (a UK Euro bank account).

Perhaps you've inadvertantly sent Euro's to the "EU"  only then to be rerouted back to an account in the UK. The direct transfer of Euro's between UK based banks isn't something that the UK clearing banking system is equipped to handle. 

friolento

Have you talked to HSBC about it? The Currency Cloud isn‘t a bank but an Electronic Money Institution. Is it possible that they are the ones who charged you?

grumbler

Hoenir said:

2chairs said:

Hi all, has anyone else had this issue? I set up a EURO HSBC current account to receive and pay Euros within the EU because their website says they don't charge any fees on these Euro transfers. Today I transferred 10,000 Euros from my HSBC euro account to my FX trading account held with The Currency Cloud (a UK Euro bank account).

Perhaps you've inadvertantly sent Euro's to the "EU"  only then to be rerouted back to an account in the UK. The direct transfer of Euro's between UK based banks isn't something that the UK clearing banking system is equipped to handle. 

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/international/currency-account/

Payments out of your account

We don’t charge for any payments you make to other HSBC accounts. We also don’t apply any charges for payments in euros to another account in the EEA, regardless of the currency of your account.*

Please see the table below for charges applying to any other outbound payments in the currency of your account.

Currency of your account		Online	Branch	Telephone
Euro within the EEA	EUR	0	0	0

AFAIK € payments from EU to € accounts in UK are free too.

[Deleted User]

Probably better that you change the title as HSBC UK appear to have not charged you.
If you check currency cloud - you've likely made the mistake of sending Euro via SWIFT rather than a SEPA credit.

SWIFT wires collection guide – Help Center (currencycloud.com)
SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) collection guide – Help Center (currencycloud.com)

2chairs

friolento said:

Have you talked to HSBC about it? The Currency Cloud isn‘t a bank but an Electronic Money Institution. Is it possible that they are the ones who charged you?

Thank you - I've spoken with the currency cloud - the charges are not from them (it's them who 'bank' with Barclays UK )

[Deleted User]

2chairs said:

friolento said:

Have you talked to HSBC about it? The Currency Cloud isn‘t a bank but an Electronic Money Institution. Is it possible that they are the ones who charged you?

Thank you - I've spoken with the currency cloud - the charges are not from them (it's them who 'bank' with Barclays UK )

You've presented no evidence that it's HSBC - other than a 'chat' with currency cloud. 
Given that there appears no currency conversion, the charges should all be fairly transparent.

2chairs

[Deleted User] said:

2chairs said:

friolento said:

Have you talked to HSBC about it? The Currency Cloud isn‘t a bank but an Electronic Money Institution. Is it possible that they are the ones who charged you?

Thank you - I've spoken with the currency cloud - the charges are not from them (it's them who 'bank' with Barclays UK )

You've presented no evidence that it's HSBC - other than a 'chat' with currency cloud. 
Given that there appears no currency conversion, the charges should all be fairly transparent.

I've spoken with HSBC today and they have confirmed that the fees were deducted by HSBC France. I

2chairs

[Deleted User] said:

Probably better that you change the title as HSBC UK appear to have not charged you.
If you check currency cloud - you've likely made the mistake of sending Euro via SWIFT rather than a SEPA credit.

The HSBC website gives this information (as also posted by Grumbler above) 

"We don’t charge for any payments you make to other HSBC accounts. We also don’t apply any charges for payments in euros to another account in the EEA, regardless of the currency of your account."

However, HSBC UK have confirmed that HSBC France deducted the 31.50EUR. 

When you make a payment online there is no option to choose SEPA or SWIFT . 

I'd say that my statement is still correct - whether it was HSBC UK or France it's HSBC that have charged me according to their own call center and contrary to what it says on their website. 

Anyway I have raised a policy complaint and they are investigating. My issue is that because it's not clear why this happened, will it happen again and how to I get more funds to The Currency Account in the meantime...... 

2chairs

2chairs said:

[Deleted User] said:

2chairs said:

friolento said:

Have you talked to HSBC about it? The Currency Cloud isn‘t a bank but an Electronic Money Institution. Is it possible that they are the ones who charged you?

Thank you - I've spoken with the currency cloud - the charges are not from them (it's them who 'bank' with Barclays UK )

You've presented no evidence that it's HSBC - other than a 'chat' with currency cloud. 
Given that there appears no currency conversion, the charges should all be fairly transparent.

I've spoken with HSBC today and they have confirmed that the fees were deducted by HSBC France. I

unfortunately , no not transparent at all. 10,000 eur seen going out of one account and 9,968.50 eur seen going into the other one