HSBC Bank kicks out all small business owners.

[westbankkid]

I saw on the news tonight that HSBC Bank has sent out letters to small business owners telling them to take a hike. Appears they don't want their business any longer. Their accounts will be closed in March. They are going to focus only on the the corporate giants. This is happening in Canada, the US and the UK.
I for one feel they are shooting themselves in the foot. I have accounts on a personal level and I will be cancelling mine. Credit Unions are much better anyway.

[grammafreddy]

http://bc.ctvnews.ca/hsbc-axes-small-bu ... -1.1596664

HSBC axes small business owners’ accounts during holidays
HSBC closes small business’ accounts

CTV British Columbia
Published Monday, December 16, 2013 10:06PM PST

Small business owners in B.C. are fuming after finding out in the busy holiday season that HSBC is closing their bank accounts.

Florist Gabriel Yiu, who owns three Angela & Gabriel’s flower shops in Vancouver with his wife, had been a loyal HSBC customer for 22 years when he received a letter telling him his business was no longer wanted.

“It was a shock,” Yiu said. “When my wife first received the letter she couldn’t believe her eyes.”

The owners of Angela & Gabriel's Flowers Inc. are among a number of small business owners whose HSBC accounts are being closed. Dec. 16, 2013. (CTV)

The only reason stated in the letter was that the bank was changing its strategy. The couple was offered 60 days to find another financial institution.

“The profitability of our business is not high enough for the bank to consider maintaining the service to us, even though we’ve been with the bank since day one,” Yiu said.

HSBC confirmed to CTV News that it’s cutting service to some of its least profitable business customers in favour of companies with “international needs.” The bank did not say how many small business accounts it’s closing.

Yiu and his wife have already found another lending institution to handle their business accounts, the Langley-based Envision Financial.

The company said it’s been busy collecting clients that were cast aside by HSBC.

“Not just one or two, but actually across our branch network, we’ve had quite a few,” Envision president Shelly Besse said.

“For us, it’s really about sitting down and looking at how we can help them and make the transition easy.”

With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Peter Grainger

[westbankkid]

Thanks for the link.

[dg3]

why bother with chump change, when government lets them rake in billions by illegal money laundering.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/hsbc-s- ... -1.1377272

to big to jail, what surprise, thats why they call the criminals that run them 'banksters'

[Rwede]

I had an account with HSBC's predecessor, Hong Kong Bank of Canada, back in the 1980s. Worst banking experience of my life.

I guess they haven't changed in the last 30 years in how they treat customers.

[LordEd]

why bother with chump change, when government lets them rake in billions by illegal money laundering.

If you'd bother to read the article, you'd see the admitted amounts are 881 million + 660 million (which is 1.5 billion, not "billions"). You'd also see they were fined 1.9 billion.

[dg3]

investigate, thats just the tip of the iceberg.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x15ufg ... annel_news

[HP]

A friend's business received the "you're fired as a customer" letter. What I enjoy about the letter is that HSBC tries to make it sound like they're doing him a favour. In case anybody is interested in what the bank said...

HSBC has helped business grow and trade internationally throughout our history. To build on this success in the future, we have recently completed a strategic review of our business banking services. The reasoning behind this review is to ensure that we are focusing our resources on customers that will most benefit from our experience.

The rest of the letter is just a notice that March 14th is the drop-dead date and all associated accounts will be closed -- so it's not just the unprofitable accounts that are being closed off. HSBC is terminating the business relationship entirely (which makes sense if you assume that it makes sense to drop the customers at all).

In looking at HSBC's website, it appears that they're re-positioned their business banking products for companies who are doing at least $3 million per year in sales (or notaries& lawyers who are constantly churning out money through their trust accounts).

HSBC is not the only bank to do this. The Royal Bank is pretty famous for making it so hard to do business with them that customers just leave. As insulting as it may seem, I suppose maintaining a relationship with smaller businesses is their prerogative.

[TimmyE]

Maybe some of our public institutions should consider "firing" HSBC for taking out their problems on the little guy. Their action makes them appear to be an elitist bank and if I won the lottery, I would walk into the bank, show them the cheque, say "you're not hired" and then leave.

[Captain Awesome]

It's not like they're obligated to service everybody - they're free to change their specialization if it's more profitable.

[GordonH]

I would laugh so hard if this comes back to bite HSBC in the *bleep*, since more than likely few those corporate giants started out as small businesses.

Who knows

[TimmyE]

I see HSBC is up to their ways again with closing accounts of local businesses again (Castanet, front page July 13). Why would anybody want to deal with them if they can close your account at the snap of their finger. They are on their way out of Canada. What's kind of funny is that they want to keep the MasterCard side of their relationship (of course, they can charge 20% interest).

[wanderingman]

I see HSBC is up to their ways again with closing accounts of local businesses again (Castanet, front page July 13). Why would anybody want to deal with them if they can close your account at the snap of their finger. They are on their way out of Canada. What's kind of funny is that they want to keep the MasterCard side of their relationship (of course, they can charge 20% interest).

all bank CC charge 20% interest royal visa royal MC President choice MC BMO master card all of them

Any of the people whom were told their Line of Credits are being withdrawn by HSBC should have no trouble to have the royal Bank or others take over.

[beancounter]

All of the small business HSBC small business customers I know of received invitations from other banks and credit unions to bring in their accounts. Some on-the-ball credit unions were offering no fees for six months and favourable loan rates as incentives - within days of the announcement. Every business starts out small and sometimes it's amazing how fast they grow. This seems pretty short sighted on HSBC's part to me. It's their right to that decision provided they don't ask for a handout in the future.

[wanderingman]

All of the small business HSBC small business customers I know of received invitations from other banks and credit unions to bring in their accounts. Some on-the-ball credit unions were offering no fees for six months and favourable loan rates as incentives - within days of the announcement. Every business starts out small and sometimes it's amazing how fast they grow. This seems pretty short sighted on HSBC's part to me. It's their right to that decision provided they don't ask for a handout in the future.

what they are doing is getting rid of a lot of HIGH RISK loans and a few that are just too pesky and not money makers