HSBC’s super tariff

In my opinion, there is something very ‘customer-unfriendly’ about one particular HSBC tariff, along with the bank’s procedure for handling complaints.

If your only accounts with them are a savings or current one, and you fail to maintain a minimum aggregate balance of €200, then you are slapped with a princely €10 charge every quarter. But then again, I suppose one does have to sympathise with HSBC Bank Malta plc – whose annual turnover is probably barely enough to enable it to meet its operating expenses, let alone make a bit of a profit every now and then. In an email dated 1 December, the Office of the Arbiter for Financial Services informed me that it is “unable to comment on the fees which banks may charge its customers.” (The Consumer Affairs Authority will always refer a commercial bank customer to the MFSA).

Going back to HSBC, and according to their website, any complaint will be addressed by the branch in which the complainant’s accounts are held and should the customer opt to take the matter further, then he or she has no choice but to contact the MFSA. In other words, one cannot, I presume, have recourse to a higher authority within HSBC’s hierarchy. It appears to me, therefore, that as far as their charges are concerned, Malta’s commercial banks can do whatever they like. These are the very same financial institutions whose credit interest rates border on the laughable, not to mention the fact that most of them use the money in our current accounts that currently carry a credit interest rate of nought. I wonder if they’ll blame the ECB for this as well…..

Does HSBC expect a customer to regularly go through its lengthy tariff? Why can’t we be forewarned through our bank statements or a simple electronic communication of such punitive fees, in the same way that we were with respect to overrunning (overdrawing your account without authorisation) and dormant accounts? I swear that I have never received prior notification from HSBC in any shape or form regarding the aforementioned minimum balance and associated charge. The telephone call from the HSBC branch after I lodged a complaint basically said: “Tough luck, esteemed and valued customer, but the rules are the rules!” Martin Bugeja Balzan