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HSBC: Business Banking reviews

Name: Business Banking
Rating: 2.32 (217 reviews)

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2.15

Based on 217 reviews, last reviewed 5th Nov 2025

100% increase in 5 star reviews

in the past 90 days

50% decrease in 1 star reviews

in the past 90 days

18%

12%

57%

Latest highest rating:

5

VANESSA - LINCOLN HSBC We have had a number of recent meetings with Vanessa from the Lincoln Branch. The service we received was exemplary on all occasions. Vanessa has gu... Read more Reviewed on: 21st October 2025

Latest lowest rating:

1

The worst bank in the UK by far I am a medium size business owner has has the unfortunate experience of banking with HSBC. They absolutely do not care about SME customers. Huge waiti... Read more Reviewed on: 5th November 2025

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About this product

HSBC business banking reviews at Smart Money People are helping other business people to fund out what being a business banking customer at HSBC is really like. With business banking and aspects such as access to finance being so important to many business owners, Smart Money People is becoming the UK's leading source of HSBC business banking reviews. Remember that you can write yours too, and join our mission to increase trust and transparency in financial services.

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HSBC Business Banking reviews (217)

Helped

Had to pay in cheque and machine was playing up. Was helped without any attitude from staff as soon as someone became available. Reviewed on: 15th October 2018

Serious issues

Applied online for a business account on Aug 3 Today is 5th of September. Account is not yet open. If you call them prepared to wait for at least 15 minutes until you can reach someone. Presumably they have some serious issues in their process. More than 30 days to open an account is unacceptable in any circumstances. Presumably once you are a customer the problems are going to intensify. Avoid! Reviewed on: 5th September 2018

Oh Good God avoid

This is specifically about business banking I have had a personal current account for decades that is fine. Applying for a business account made sense as all the family have presonal accounts with HSBC. The application process is so glitchy it beggars belief- I had to keep chat on and use it constantly for the process which took days and days because of the problems. Then they wouldn't accept their own bank statements as address proof so it was turned down- after telling me they would. A business advisor was not available in my central London location so I attempted to get an appointment elsewhere and the wait was two months. These applications time out after one. A regular advisor couldn't help though she did explain that the application was rejected due to using an HSBC statement. We tried using a tax notification as instructed next. It did not say anywhere that this could not be self assessment. So it was rejected again. Since the person n question is self employed and applying for a bank account as a sole trader it would appear a bit illogical to expect another ind of tax notification. Instead of applying for tax credits as advised, or a drivers license or putting said persons name on the council tax bill we are simply applying to another bank. I actually spent all of one day once trying to get through on the phone without luck. This is days and weeks of my life I can never get back, and the advisors while pleasant repeatedly gave me wrong advice. I am planning to also move all of our personal accounts now, this was such a bad experience, and it makes me think having the account could never work either. Reviewed on: 21st August 2018

Waste of time, Nobody cares

Today is the 48th days that my application is in pre approval stage, Nobody cares in customer service, they just making the promises and apologising! I finally submitted my complaint yesterday, lets see if there is any outcome. MY ADVISE: DON`t EVEN think about HSBC business account Reviewed on: 18th July 2018

Don't even think about it! You will waste hours of your life and get nowhere

Almost impossible to actually setup an account, speak to anyone who cares or generally interact with this 'bank'. Took their specialists 14 working days to get back to me. Time is precious, give none to HSBC. Reviewed on: 9th May 2018

58 mins on hold

Had to give up after 5 attempts and 58 mins hold time. What is the point of customer service? Reviewed on: 24th April 2018

Pathetic service

They asked me to apply online so I did and even after one month I am waiting for any communication from them. Every-time I asked status in branch they say they will come back to me. But they never contacted me. My application Online status is not moving at all. I don't think they actually do open business accounts. Reviewed on: 17th April 2018

Horrible Service and Overall Experience

I applied to open a business account 3 months ago and it is still not open. Not only do you have to wait 30 minutes every time you want to speak to someone, but they are all over the place seem to not be coordinating whatsoever internally between the different teams. Initially my application got delayed 1 month because THEY provided me with an incorrect W8-BEN form to fill out and only two weeks after completing it they came back to me to say that it was dated and I would need to fill a new one. How an institution of this scale is not organised enough to have the proper form on their website is unbelievable. I completed the entire application and provided the necessary documentation over 2 months ago. However, the individual who has been responsible for sending my application to the Checking Team within HSBC has sent it incorrectly twice. Also, for some reason, although I applied online, my application ended up in a branch and no HSBC employee can explain why. After two months of waiting and honestly hours of following up, today they got back to me and said that the application was being delayed because of a discrepancy in my home address. What is ridiculous is that I was only told about this 2 months after submitting my application when it should have been flagged straight away at the beginning. Word of advice - don't waste your valuable time trying to open a business account with HSBC. They're useless. Reviewed on: 13th April 2018

dormant account & frozen telephone banking nightmare

After being an HSBC customer for 8 years, they froze my account for being inactive/dormant after a few months (I hadn't used it in a while), and also froze my telephone banking for some reason. I don't currently live in the UK, so could not go into a branch in person to "verify my identity". After calling for 6 months and repeatedly asking for a letter/code to unfreeze my telephone banking (in order to then re-open my dormant account), no letter came. When I called, the customer service agents could not confirm the address they were sending the letter to for "my security", because my telephone banking was frozen. I would later find out that they were sending the letter (WITH SECURE INFORMATION) to the wrong address. But they could not tell me this. If this sounds Kafka-esque and ridiculous and illogical, trust me, it was. I went into an HSBC US branch and begged them to call the UK bank to get my account unfrozen. After an hour on the phone, we were able to get my telephone banking unfrozen, but not my dormant account reactivated, because they have bizarre address and ID confirmation policies (what they are trying to confirm, I don't understand, because all of the addresses are easily changeable either on their website or through my other banks). No policies are consistent. None of their staff seem to know or understand their policies for basic things like unfreezing an account. I would absolutely NEVER recommend this bank to anyone. I will likely be closing my account after I get it unfrozen (it still isn't). Reviewed on: 10th March 2018

Worst and most complicated banking service ever

Worst banking experience. Took over a month to set up the account. Finally attempted a transaction but was rejected asked to call fraud team Did that confirmed transaction was valid adviced money transfer would go through it didn't . Tried to log online account frozen . called customer service no one has a clue why and no record of me calling the day before.!!! Totally unacceptable Reviewed on: 7th March 2018

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