photo credit: Andres Rueda

Some time ago I blogged about a problem I was having with HSBC Malta centred around a communication breakdown. I had been trying to get a message through to them for months, and finally they sent me a letter saying they were cancelling my savings plan; which would have resulted in a substantial financial loss for me (savings plans tend to pay out if you stick with them; but cancelling out early means that the charges you would have paid are much larger than any potential gains; a bit like taking diet pills and going for an all-you-can-eat buffet every day).

Anyway, after sending them a letter (yeah, I had to put pen to paper and pay £4 to send a registered letter); they *finally* got the message and told me what the damage was; which I paid immediately and now my account is back in good standing. After 3 months of using their online messaging facility, it only took one letter to resolve the issue. I don’t know if it was the tone of the message; or the face that I CCed it to their customer complaints department; but they finally resolved the issue.

Anyway, it’s not worth getting bitter about it; and I’m glad the problem is resolved. Thanks to whoever took the initiative to sort it out.

I’m having a horrible customer experience at the moment with HSBC Malta. I currently have life insurance policy with them with a premium that needs to be paid at the end of January. I didn’t get a notice for them that I needed to pay my premium so I contacted them at the end of January. It’s taken them 2 months so far and I still don’t know what my payment should be. Only now they contacted me to tell me that as I haven’t paid my premium they are suspending the policy. I’ve contact them no less than 8 times in this period and they still haven’t managed to get the message that all I’m trying to do is pay for my insurance. I’m not ready to look for a new term insurance quote yet, but I’m getting pretty close to it.

It’s interesting to note that my original communication on the 28th of January actually has a case number on the reply, so it’s not like they don’t have the systems to cater for their client’s needs. It’s just that they don’t seem to be using them; or don’t care about using them. It’s a crying shame; because an experience like this can really turn a customer sour and they could end up blogging about their bad experiences. Anyway I’ve written them a letter explaining the circumstances and when I’ve tried to contact them. I’ll keep you all posted about whether I manage to get to the bottom of it.

I noticed last night that HSBC in Malta has decided to start levying a charge for it’s customers to use their Internet banking facility.I normally have no problem for paying for a service, but this just feels totally wrong.

Let’s examine how Internet banking came about. It was born of a necessity to drive down costs for banks by reducing the number of interactions that required a staff member to process them. Staff costs are the largest section of variable cost that can be attributed with dealing with a client request and empowering users to service themselves is touted in all the textbooks as the premier way to increase service levels and drive down costs. So I find it pretty shocking that a bank still offers personal banking for free while introduces a levy for online banking.

There have been a couple of of letters in the paper about it, but I won’t be holding my breath that anything will change. HSBC may still have my business, but they have definetly made a great dent in my respect for their banking practices.