[luxelush]

Hey guys,

Does anyone know what HK bank has the best high-interest savings accounts?
Or any recommendations on the best bank in general? I'm thinking of changing.

Love your help!

[PDLM]

High interest in which currency? Interest rates generally are pretty low at the moment. Generally, the smaller the bank the higher the interest rate, but also, of course, the higher the risk to your money.

Which is the best bank overall depends on your situation. If you want to save $1000 you'll probably get a different answer than if you want to save $1,000,000.

Do you want to undertake investment activity (stocks, funds, bonds etc) through the bank?

Do you need ATMs all over Hong Kong or just one or two will do?

Do you want just local banking or is international connectivity and easy transfers important?

Are you happy to pay for service or do you insist that everything be free?

and so on...

[luxelush]

Thanks for the feedback,

Will have to consider all these in the search.

Went to HSBC and asked what the highest interest was- he said right now that NZ savings gives a 6% return and an ELI (equity linked investment) guarantees 15% per month, minimum 100k for 1-6 months duration.

Think I'll shop around smaller banks to see if they can do any better, though this sounds pretty good!

[PDLM]

Originally Posted by luxelush

he said right now that NZ savings gives a 6% return and an ELI (equity linked investment) guarantees 15% per month, minimum 100k for 1-6 months duration.

Well yes, but the NZ dollar has slipped more than 6% against the HK dollar in the last two months alone!

And I think you have fundamentally misunderstood ELIs. No investment guarantees 15% per year, never mind 15% per month! ELIs are very high risk investments with no guarantee that you will get any money back at all! You are essentially gambling against the bank in a close to zero-sum game where you have to try to guess more accurately than the bank where a particular equity's price will be at some point in the future. You should only even think about these if you have a lot of investment experience and a very high appetite for risk.

[freeier]

oh i guess i can set up a bank. tell you what, i will collect hkd deposit and give you 12% p.a. interest rate guarantee.. interested ? minimum sum of 5mil HKD per deposit account.

8-P


and pdlm, no in ELIs you don't take a bet against the bank. you take it against the market. its a risky investment but the banks are just the bankers sitting in between the risk and the customers.

[PDLM]

Well OK - against some "bankers" (and I use the term loosely to include other financial professionals gambling with money other than their own) rather than your specific bank. But it's still essentially a zero-sum (minus other bankers taking their commission) gamble. Not for the novice or the risk-averse.

[freeier]

pdlm, for all your knowledge about finance, this is not true.

in an analogy, lets say HSBC went from 118, down to 110, then back to 118. if you are a normal hsbc investor you'd be getting 0 returns. but if you are in an eli, the bank actually ended up making maybe 50% of the swing, i.e. $4. and before they even got the $4, they promised to pay you $3 over the 6 weeks you are engaged in the eli..

so essentially you are authorizing the banks to trade certain things on your behalf and getting a promised return (with downside risk if the market goes against u).

but that said, the risk is not low and you'd need to know what you are doing to be involved in this.

[PDLM]

OK - I haven't had much time to study this one, but I am hugely suspicious of most derivative products. It seems to me that I am inherently betting against someone, and if that someone isn't betting with their own money and I am with mine then I generally won't touch it.

[luxelush]

And I am so grateful for your discussions on the topic as it's allowed me valuable information that I might never have had access to elsewhere.

Will have to do way more research and check back with you later.

Thank you so much guys!