HSBC: News and non-HSBC ATM Charges

For those contemplating opening up HSBC accounts here it is worth bearing in mind that it may be useful to open up a local bank account to at CIMB, Maybank, Public Bank or wherever. The reason for this is that as HSBC is classed as a foreign bank, charges for using your ATM card in one of the local banks are RM 4 for each usage. Not a great deal I know but, if you use ATMs a lot these charges will mount up over the year. If you are in Penang you will be aware that there are not that many HSBC ATMs around with the ones I use being mostly at Downing Street (Georgetown), Gurney Plaza and Queensbay Mall. Charges between the local banks are RM 1 for using another bank's ATM card but, as there are so many branches of the main local banks around the need for that should be rare.

One piece of news that Penang readers may not be aware of is that there are plans to open another branch of HSBC near to Island Plaza, Tg Tokong some time next year so that will be another outlet to use.

And finally, at times I like to use Standing Orders to pay some bills. With HSBC at least, you can set up 'auto-pay' arrangements with some payees and particularly payees who are listed under their 'Pay bill' list. Others, that need to be paid by inter-bank transfer (MEPS-Giro), may not set up using the auto-pay feature. In these circumstances you merely need to call HSBC tele-banking or pop into a branch and you can set up a 'Standing Order'. This will ensure your bill gets paid on time and saves the hassle of having to constantly log-on and pay by way of one-off transfers. For me it's very useful for instance to pay the monthly apartment rental. That leaves me more time free to worry about the state of collapsing Western economies!!!! :-D