HSBC given second chance to show true colours
Poor HSBC. The world's local bank has had a rough time recently.
Earlier this month, Loose Cannon impugned the efficiency of the bank's remittance services to India, even if he had been enamoured by the diligence of one of its customer service officers.
Adding insult to injury, a High Court justice excoriated the lender a week later for its 'total lack of morality or legality' after it was found to have bullied a struggling local firm into selling a flagship property, and forced the company into liquidation when it tried to defend itself.
What's a banking behemoth to do? It isn't its fault that in the course of day-to-day business its actions might occasionally result in ruin for the people and small businesses that interact with it.
Loose Cannon understands you, HSBC, and is offering you a chance to make amends. Deep down, all of us know that you are not the cruel, arrogant corporate thug that Justice William Waung Sik-ying believes you to be. Dealing with the following humble complaint quickly would show your true colours.
A local China researcher, consultant and loyal Loose Cannon reader submitted a letter this week that led with: 'Herewith I present my own recent travails with Horror Story Banking Corp.'
Uh oh.
It seems our correspondent has banked with HSBC as a business customer for five years. He set up a new HSBC account recently to handle income from the consulting side of his business.
Two months after the account opened, he received a US dollar cheque from a consulting client and posted it to the bank. He foresaw no problems, as he had been depositing such cheques into his old account for years.
A few days later, the cheque came back rejected, along with a note indicating - in tick box form - that it would not be honoured because the new account had been 'opened less than one year'. The note was signed illegibly, and included no telephone number, fax number or address.
Over the course of three conversations with an HSBC customer service representative named Sanna, the complainant was informed that acceptance of US dollar cheques drawn on overseas banks - in this case an obscure American lender called JPMorgan Chase - was a discretionary matter assessed on a case-by-case basis.
He was then given a number to which he was to fax a copy of the cheque, so that 'relevant departments' could adjudicate whether it was worthy of deposit.
Loose Cannon combed HSBC's online information during the week looking for published material that might shed light on its foreign cheque-cashing policy.
A customer service officer informed him by telephone that 'depositing foreign cheques was no problem, but the bank reserves the right not to credit the account holder until the cheque has [been] cleared'.
Fair enough. Transparent, too, was the bank's policy of charging either a flat $200 cashing fee for foreign cheques or 0.375 per cent of their face value. But nothing explained why HSBC would spit a foreign cheque back at a small business client without explanation, or why it had arrogated to itself the discretion to deny such a basic service without publishing criteria that might warn clients in advance.
A second call to the business customer service line, this time asking directly whether Loose Cannon could please deposit a US dollar cheque from a foreign bank in his business account, was answered with an unambiguous 'of course'!
Finally, Loose Cannon confronted Sanna about the issue. Understandably flustered, she referred his call to HSBC media relations.
While none too happy to learn of the complaint just hours before Loose Cannon intended to publicise it, HSBC spokesman Gareth Hewett said the matter would receive his full attention.
'Deep down, all of us know that you are not [a] cruel, arrogant corporate thug'