HSBC FR ISA Cashback

nomorekids

Apply for the Fixed rate now that you've got a current account, apply for the fixed rate isa on hsbc and during the process you put that you want to transfer your 41k over to them. Then you fill in the form and begin the round of phone calls trying to get them to actually process your ISA transfer.

on a separate note, have you 9K from this years allowance to put in? If so its worth another £100 to you as you'll have the next tier up on HSBC incentive table

Rich2808

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81983288#Comment_81983288

For your health and sanity just keep your funds in Santander and open one of their 4.5% fixed rate ISAs. You will earn 4.5% from day one.

The entire HSBC transfer process is a total shambles and is taking up to a month - and even when they do transfer the funds the money's disappear for an age and don't appear in your new HSBC isa. I have no sign of the cash in my ISA a week post transfer (the transfer took 3.5 weeks to happen) - some have had no sign of their funds in their account 3 weeks later. No idea if interest is being applied on it while it sits somewhere in their systems.

While the process happens at a snail's pace you will likely lose most of the benefit of the cashback in lost interest (I estimate over half of my cashback has been lost in lost interest while waiting) - as your funds sit waiting at a lower rate waiting to be moved out. Let alone dealing with HSBC customer services who can't tell you what is going on or where your money is. If they can't monitor the process of course - will they even pay the cashback properly in the end anyway?

Your choice in the end - but it is just not worth the hassle. I will never ever do a transfer in to HSBC ever again after my experience - and I am not alone as countless other posters have noted on here. What takes Santander 48 hours takes HSBC over 4 weeks and still waiting!

x44

I've always found HSBC of all the main stream banks the most backward of all of them. Almost as if they are really not actually interested in the UK or of investing in systems to improve their UK offering.

I did wonder if they were maybe thinking of re-activing the old Midland Bank brand (which they took over) as the UK operations and then selling/floating it off and retiring back to their Asia base which was of course as the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Corporation.

friolento

I was in Branch today to ask where my funds are and why they have not been credited to my ISA 8 days after my old ISA got closed as a result of the ISA transfer. They tried to tell me that it's the fault of the sender, which I said is 99.99% unlikely because I could show them a letter from the sender confirming the money has been sent. It was a fairly frustrating 20 minutes, they offered any and all excuses you can imagine, culminating in the Branch Manager trying to talk me out of raising a formal complaint because complaints can take up to 8 weeks. He didn't succeed, and I am fairly confident that they now know they can't mess with me.

The Branch is fairly open plan, with two cubicles divided by just 6ft partition panels, so you can hear what's being discussed in the other cubicle. You guessed right - a chap asking why his ISA transfer from Nationwide hadn't yet been completed. He was given the same excuse like they'd tried with me - "they probably haven't sent it yet", and they sent him off to Nationwide. Poor sod. He'd left before me, so I couldn't catch up with him and tell him that it's almost certainly HSBC's incompetence.

efunc

I transferred over a £100k from a Meteor holding account earning no interest at all. I assummed it would take a couple of days like the hundreds of ISAs I've transferred over the past 25 years. HSBC now tell me my account will receive the funds tomorrow, but that's almost a month after applying for the ISA. So the £500 pounds bonus will be equivalent of my almost £500 of lost interest!! Diabolical.

I have another £100k+ ISA being transferred to Santander for a £400 voucher. I still await news about that one, but hopefully not as dire as this…

friolento

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81984357#Comment_81984357

I know it’s infuriating how long HSBC take over a simple cash ISA transfer but I think your maths and logic are a bit out when it comes to the bonus. You can only calculate any loss once you have seen what date your HSBC interest payment starts. I was told it’s from the day after they submitted the transfer request - though I have yet to see confirmation for this. You also have to concede that they are allowed to take 15 days over a transfer. You then have to check whether there is any gap between interest payments at your old and new provider - usually there isn’t any but in any case, we don’t have any right to the rate of the new provider from the date we submit the transfer request, or before the old ISA got closed.

Rich2808

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81984357#Comment_81984357

I did two online transfer requests to Santander on a Friday afternoon two weeks ago. The funds were in my new Santander ISA by the Tuesday evening. So just two working days.

So you should be fine.

Santander's offer is open to anyone - not just currrent account holders - and their cashback kicks in at a lower transfer sum (£10k) and they are offering the same rates as HSBC across multiple terms. So how come they aren't 'overwhelmed'!!

Rich2808

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81984522#Comment_81984522

Problem is you won't know what interest you have and will earn until after the HSBC fixed rate ISA matures in a year. So you can't be certain what proportion of your cashback - assuming they even pay that on time - is offset by the lost interest due to the delays (i.e. when does your old provider's lower rate end and your new HSBC 4.5% rate begin - and could there even be a gap as your money sits in no mans land in HSBC).

Will HSBC pay interest from when they submitted your request to your old provider, from when they did what they needed to do to complete the transfer, when your funds were transferred to them by your old provider or when they actually paid those funds into your HSBC ISA (so it is tracked via being in your name in your account). It should in theory be the former - but will it be?

With most providers - re electronic transfers - this all happens within 2-3 days so the interest impact is marginal. For HSBC there are days even weeks between these four stages?

Industry standards and agreed timelines are just so out the window with HSBC on everything else - how do we know if they following what should be done for interest as well. You won't know until May 2027 - and calling them and asking for an explanation of anything (even basic stuff like where the hell is my £40k and why is it not in my account) is hard work.

friolento

I know we cannot know for certain how much interest they paid until they paid it. Not sure there was a monthly option, but I am on annual anyway, so yes, it will be May 2027 before I can know for sure. With every other ISA provider I would not have any concerns, but I have totally lost confidence in HSBC.

They did tell me that they will be paying interest from the day after they submitted the transfer request to my old provider - though as I said, I have yet to see that this is true. An indication of what they do will be available when we can see the date they credited the transferred money into our HSBC ISAs.

I hope that all those who are experiencing the extraordinary glacial HSBC processing, which flies in the face of many of the rules laid out by Goverment in the Guide For ISA Managers, will raise formal complaints with HSBC.

As an important aside: only today my HSBC app throws up a message again to advertise their ISA offer. From that we can conclude that they do not think they are at capacity, so their "we are experiencing high volumes" sounds ever more like just a lame excuse for not having their act together.

efunc

In my case it's much clearer. My ISA of a £100k+ is currently languishing in a Meteor holding account, uninvested - so earning 0% interest. It was going to go into one of their ISAs at the time, but the rates started rising after transferring it in, so I reversed it towards the end of March in the 14 day cooling-off period whilst I applied for the HSBC one instead. Since HSBC couldn't transfer from Meteor using the online form I had to fill in a paper form and send it to my branch. That was at the start of April. It's now May. Each time I talk to HSBC they say give it another 5 days. The last time I talked to them they said the account is open and the transfer should go in by May the 3rd. That's tomorrow, Sunday! We'll see, But either way it's a loss to me of 6 weeks interest on over £100k, and counting. I will complain in any case. I've been an HSBC Premier customer for 20 years and expect better than this. It's a tangible loss of interest.