[discobay]

Nationwide Building Society offers a better rate for their e-Savings account with online access too.

[Lammarite]

Originally Posted by Lammarite

Anglo Irish- google it- I can give you more details tomorrow.

Nothing's risk free though!

This is the interest rate page of the Anglo irish website. We have found it very easy to get the money there and they have great customer service on the phone and by email.

And with the pound getting stronger at the moment it would possibly be worth looking at the Sterling account if you intend to use it in the UK. We have a US dollar account.

Anglo Irish

[tvrlover]

1) Never use standard chartered crap bank, it's the WORST BANK I HAVE EVER USED IN THE WORLD! and I have lived in over dozen countries. HORRIBLE! customer service, HORRIBLE turn-around time, HORRIBLE waiting time, just plain horrible.

2) Fees? Maybe compared to UK, but compared to USA and AU they are not bad.

3) Fees depend on how much money you have in the bank too, if you have certain accounts it's fee free.

[Rats]

Lammarite - Not sure what reports you're looking at, but the pound has been loosing strength daily against the US$ (and therefore HK$). Whereas a year ago I changed UK£ into US$ and got $2 to the £ (making a skiing holiday in the Sates very cheap!) now you can only get approx $1.7 to the £.

Now obviously for anyone wanting to visit the UK at the moment best time to buy those £'s!

[Katanga]

Can someone tell me what is the advantge of the Premier account at HSBC.

I have an acct in Singapore with HSBC which is premier but the account I have in HK is not premier (I don't have HKD1m which is what they were asking for)

I have heard that HSBC will automatically give you a premier a/c if you have one in another country with them (and without the 1m HKD restriction). Is this true ?

[PDLM]

There are various little charges that you don't get (like setting up standing orders for free), and some of the interest rates are marginally higher, and you get a much shorter queueing time if you have to visit a normal branch, and there are the dedicated Premier centres / branches as well.

I'm not sure that's worth much trouble to get, but if you had $1M here anyway then there's no cost to it, so why not?

When last I checked HSBC told me I would need to meet the requirements in each country oif I wanted multiple Premier accounts, but that was a while ago, and I didn't pust the issue.

[oormila]

I have a question (maybe stupid,sorry!) for lammarite and discobay...
can the anglo-irish or the e-savings account be opened by someone residing in Hongkong and by someone like me who isnt an american or british citizen??
thanks for the help in advance

[EUChinese]

Anyway, I still think in general banking system in HK is one of the best in the world that what HK made up for- top banking captial.( I live in the UK).

Talk about banking in UK, it was not long ago, you wouldn't be able to see your update transactions on your account until 3 days after you last incurred any transaction movement. Therefore you could never know exactly how much you got in your current account unless you really marked everything down everytime. while HK had instant update many years ago (since I was a baby).
If you want to transfer money from one account to another account regardless to the same person or different person. you still have to wait for 3 days before you can see the money in your bank account, nothing like you in HK go to a cash point and make a transfer then less than a second you can see the money on another account on the other side of the country, even in China.
Another thing really annoying me was, once I was seperated needing £10k, around $130,000, ok (US$16,000) I agree is not little money but definitely not a great deal for HK people. The bank (TSB) refused to give me the money they said I needed to give them 3 days notice because the bank didn't have to cash available in the branch, unbelievable. You can't withdrawl your own money.

And counters at most of the banks don't open on sat.

Oh and the staff can't do multi-tasking and anything not straight forward the staff wouldn't understand, e.g. they know what 1+1 is, but don't won't know 1+2*2 is (they would probably answer u 6 or 11). so don't ask them to do more than one thing at a time. Perhaps they had too much chips to eat.

Apart from these the people are lovely.

What I am saying is you pay a little service charge perhaps HK$80 which is only £6, for a pack of fag. but you receive better services. I wouldn't mind

[Lammarite]

Originally Posted by oormila

I have a question (maybe stupid,sorry!) for lammarite and discobay...
can the anglo-irish or the e-savings account be opened by someone residing in Hongkong and by someone like me who isnt an american or british citizen??
thanks for the help in advance

Yes, I'm Dutch.

[discobay]

Originally Posted by oormila

I have a question (maybe stupid,sorry!) for lammarite and discobay...
can the anglo-irish or the e-savings account be opened by someone residing in Hongkong and by someone like me who isnt an american or british citizen??
thanks for the help in advance

I don't think the Nationwide will allow you to do so unless you first open a Flex (chequing and savings) account with them and that requires you to do so in person (I think). Doesn't harm to email them.