I am a student in London but my family lives in Hong Kong. About a year ago I had the most ridiculous experience of my life. I was in Hong Kong about to go on to China to spend a month doing an important internship. In order to get the visa to China, I had to obtain travel insurance. No problem: HSBC Premier offers a travel insurance along with Premier membership. Fantastic!
The visa desk, however, required proof. Okay, I'll just go to the bank and get a signed certification from them. Upon arrival I explain my problem at the Premier desk and I'm told they cannot help me because despite also being a Premier customer in Hong Kong, my travel insurance was linked to my UK card. They tell me to call HSBC Premier in the UK. As I was reluctant to spend dozens of pounds on international calls, they were kind enough to lend me a phone – until they closed at half past noon.
So there I was in desperate need of getting my visa before my flight, waiting to get a very simple piece of paper from HSBC. And sure enough, as I spoke to the HSBC Premier UK call centre in Scotland, explained to them my problem and its urgency, they told me not to worry and that they would send it to me immediately." Great!" – no. They were going to send it to me at my UK home address by post and it would arrive in the next 3-5 days. "How does this help me? I'm in Hong Kong. Hello?" So I suggest: "Can you email it to me?"
"No Sir I can't do that..."
"Really? Ah, it's rather simple: you prepare the letter you were originally going to send to my home in the UK, but instead of sending it, you take the paper out of the envelope, put it in a scanner, scan and email it to me."
"Sorry Sir, I can't do that, it goes against our security policy."
"Okay well how about you email or fax it to your branch here in Hong Kong and I can receive it from your colleagues over here?"
"That won't be possible Sir! We can only send it to you personally by mail. If you like we can register a new address and we will send it to your Hong Kong address?"
Uninterested by the prospect of waiting two weeks to get a travel insurance, I told HSBC Premier to forget it and spent £100 on another travel insurance. All in all the World's local bank is an international mess, strongly lacking in cooperation between branches internationally. HSBC Premier is a waste of time, but hey, at least I got to have free coffee.
Reviewed on: 12th January 2016
