HSBC withdrew my business account

[SpaceRaiders]

For safeguarding reasons Has anyone with any other bank had this before? Apparently it’s a legal requirement.

I filled out the web form last November, theres me thinking there’s nothing further. Then a letter lands on my doorstep yesterday morning to say they’re withdrawing my account. All my countless direct debits due to be paid have all bounced. I now have to spend hours calling companies to reinstate them. I’m considering changing banks, as none of my other business accounts have never demanded all this kind of information.

Fwiw I’m operating a legitimate business before anyone asks!

Yep seen a weird amount of this lately. (Work in accounts practice).

One client waiting for a Ltd Co bank account with HSBC (been with them years as partnership) for nearly 6 months. Think theyve decided to go elsewhere.

Not heard of issues with Barclays, and plenty now using Starling- which I know nothing about tbh, but the 'new banking regs' are seeing to cause account closures and general shitness at HSBC, Lloyds, Santander ime.

For no apparent rhyme nor reason 🤷‍♀️

It’s so incredibly frustrating, all my personal accounts have been with them for over 15 years. And they can’t even tell me what info they actually require, they just refer me back to a stupidly long web form. I’m minded to bail and move to Metro, it’s just the hassle of moving everything across that puts me off.

Yep. Happened to us in 2018. Absolute nightmare with all the direct debits. They gave me 24 hours grace when I called to complain so I withdrew as much as I could to an unused personal account and paid the unpaid direct debits with it. The rest followed as a cheque about a week later. Moved to Lloyds and so far, no hassle. 🤞🏻

Happened to mum, when she went in to question it it was about a form that had to be filled out by law and they use this as a way to get people to actually do it. Problem was there was no mention of this form which had they said you must come in and fill this form in otherwise we will close your account she would of done it. Instead she closed the account and now banks with another company.

I get that AML checks are a legal requirement, but I don’t understand why is HSBC being so bloody militant about it. I’d happily meet someone in person but this web form is a bloody pain. And they really have their timing on point, in the midst of a pandemic, when you can’t go to branch and speak to a person, all whilst homeschooling. I just want to scream!

Yup, we moved our business to Starling from HSBC and no problems at all so far.

I’m involved with 2 youth/charity accounts at HSBC. It has taken almost 18mths so far to not add a signatory after a change in leaders. We’d move except no one seems currently able to open this time if account

With the HSBC forms as well, even if you could go into branch, they can’t help - or at least that’s what they told us!! It all has to be done over the phone/via the horrific form

Business customer here too.

They’re awful as a bank, absolutely no way you can recommend them. I had all the safeguarding malarkey last year- took forever to pass, they want to see paper copies of utility bills less than one month old. Most of us don’t even get paper bills anymore. Always unhelpful and every time I go into a branch to do something there’s a new “oh sorry we can’t do that anymore”.

@Lonelycrab Did you pass the checks in the end? I’m not convinced I’ll be able to open another account within the next 7 days. And what do I even do without a business account in the interim?!

Yes eventually I passed but it was a complete “computer says no” experience on the whole. I took about 10 bills in with my name and address and they wouldn’t accept as they were past the one month or newer rule. So had to time it when my water bill came through and donut that way. Pita.

Do it not donut. Think my autocorrect is reading my mind

[quote SpaceRaiders]@Lonelycrab Did you pass the checks in the end? I’m not convinced I’ll be able to open another account within the next 7 days. And what do I even do without a business account in the interim?![/quote]
I had to use an unused personal account when they did this to me.

Made that year’s accounts “interesting”.

@AntonMeyersNo1Fan

Yup, we moved our business to Starling from HSBC and no problems at all so far.

I’m involved with 2 youth/charity accounts at HSBC. It has taken almost 18mths so far to not add a signatory after a change in leaders. We’d move except no one seems currently able to open this time if account

Anton - we've had no end of issues with a charity account with HSBC over many many years, and currently can't update the mandate as (unsurprisingly) people's signatures have changed over 15 years.

But, we've been able to add new online users both via the app and online banking, so if you have access to that, you can update your users.

Worst issue we had was they tried to close the account because they'd been writing to the chair of the trustees who hadn't responded - she didn't know they'd been writing to her as the address they'd been using for her was the address of the bank branch .

There’s a reason why they have absolutely dire ratings for customer satisfaction- they treat it like you should be honoured for letting them give you an account. I’ll be leaving once things get a bit more back to normal.

@MyVisionsComeFromSoup one of them has no online. That’s the one we’ve been trying to change.

Every time I go in to pay in money they ask if I want to change it to online. Every time I explain that the rules of the organisation say all payments MUST be double authorised so if they can do that online, then yes please. And every time the cashier looks surprised and tells me they can’t do that so it’s no good to me. Every.single.time.

Something happened a while ago with HSBC’s underhand policy taking millions or something dodgy was going on and they was found out. Maybe the are being over the top carefull now?

Change banks

@AntonMeyersNo1Fan - that's annoying - we found it easier to change the organisation's rules than to faff around with dual authorisation for transactions. I think the Charities Aid Foundation accounts allow online dual auth though, and I know I can set that up for a standard business account with RBS, but if nowhere is open to set up new accounts, then that doesn't really help!

Also Anton we started looking at Metrobank, and they offered dual auth (we didn't progress the application in the end for other reasons), but they were really helpful

@MyVisionsComeFromSoup unfortunately it’s Girl Guiding so no chance of me changing their policies!

Oh look- poof! There goes another 82 branches, to be closed down over the course of the year, including my local one. Cheers HSBC😑

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55720206

I had to use an unused personal account when they did this to me.

I have a pretty sizeable turn over, I can’t see how that would be practical in any way. They’ve given me 30 days to re-submit so I’ll move if I can open another account with metro quickly.

They did this to me in 2018 (I think) I posted on here and a lot of people shared their experiences, there might have been something about it on R4 as well, might be worth looking up
It was an inconvenience for me but some some people it was a disaster, one man with a roofing company was saying it would probably end his business. I think there was someone holding a concert as well with no way to pay anyone.
Try Starling, I have heard good reviews about them.

We switched to Monzo Business from HSBC, they ported all the DD and the money and was no hassle at all. Very quick to open an account as well.
Unless you’re a cash heavy business who needs to deposit money often I can totally recommend them, they never gave us any problem with KYC, just checked companies house and our passports. 5 minutes.