HSBC Reviews 156

I wish could give them a one star review or negative stars....

Worse bank ever. They never respond, they keep your money under some BS investigation. You provide them with all the information and they still keep your money and never giving you a straight answer.

Worse part of it, they are allowed by the BS law in Jersey. No other bank will ever keep your money..... but this one needs it, since they are bleeding everywhere else in the world.

They now decided to close my account and my funds.... well?? what do you think?

I would give ZERO stars if I could.

My experience with HSBC Expat has been extremely poor, and I would strongly urge anyone considering this account to think very carefully before opening one.

I understand that banks have legal and regulatory obligations, and I am not criticising the existence of account reviews in principle. My concern is the way the process was handled: unclear timelines, limited substantive updates, and a review / complaints process that, in my experience, did not provide effective or timely help while the restriction remained ongoing.

In my case, the restriction began in June 2025 and remained unresolved for over 10 months. I also raised formal complaints during the process, but this did not produce a clear or timely resolution.

I also referred the matter to CIFO, but in my case this did not lead to any practical resolution while the account remained restricted.

If you are thinking of opening an account with HSBC Expat, do not assume that, if something goes wrong, the complaint process will quickly fix it. Based on my personal experience, you should seriously consider whether you could tolerate:
- a prolonged account restriction,
- unclear timeframes,
- repeated or delayed information requests, and
- a lengthy complaints process with limited practical help while the review remains ongoing.

This is only my personal experience, but based on what I have gone through, I would not recommend HSBC Expat unless you are FULLY PREPARED for that risk.

HSBC Indonesia caters for local customers, who they assume never ever leave the country. Since Dec 2025, they have completely shut down their online banking presence. So any transactions, checking, etc must be done by the app only. Guess what happens when your phone is stolen while you are staying abroad?
So when I need them to get me my statements, to be sent to my address in Indonesia (I have someone who can action in once it arrives), how many steps do you think it takes? And the number of paperworks I have to sign to 'authorise' them to print and send this document? And how long before it reaches me? Indonesia may be a international bank, but their systems are outdated, slow and not fit for purpose.

I have experience in HSBC in several countries such as UK, Australia, Asia, etc and also Jersey (Expat). The customer experience in Jersey is worse. Their hotline secure and customer service team are totally inexperience. I can say it is even worser than AI. No service and anything ask they cannot answer. Their secure team always restrict the bank transfer and even sent me email that freezing my bank account if not provide my private personal information which is totally not related to bank accounts in HSBC Expat. Even sent the information to their staff, because staff was on leave and nobody followed up my case. Really bad experience on it and I am really unexpected that HSBC service is so bad in HSBC Expat. I can really say that the risk to deposit money in HSBC expat account is in high risk. Their secure team really dont know how to manage the risk and just want to ask as many as information from the customers only even the informtaion must be useless for risk assessment.

My experience with HSBC Expat has been one of the most frustrating and distrust-inducing banking relationships I have ever encountered across multiple jurisdictions.

After having an account with HSBC Expat for a couple of years, the situation changed. What followed was an endless cycle of enhanced due diligence requests, layer upon layer of documentation, repeated verifications, and shifting requirements with no clear endpoint. It felt less like compliance and more like a deliberate strategy to exhaust the client.

The so-called “safeguarding” process was particularly concerning. I was subjected to a prolonged call (around 45 minutes) where the tone was at times inappropriate and borderline sarcastic. Questions went far beyond reasonable financial due diligence, probing into highly personal matters such as whether I own luxury artwork and the contents of my personal safebox. This was presented under the pretense of “getting to know the client better,” but the approach felt intrusive, unprofessional, and, frankly, disrespectful.

Throughout this process, there was a constant underlying assumption of suspicion, as if the client is guilty until proven otherwise. Access to funds can be restricted with little transparency, while communication remains slow, fragmented, and difficult to escalate. The responses from their side can take an unreasonable amount of time.

For context, I maintain banking relationships across multiple regions (Europe, GCC, Asia, and the Middle East), and I have never encountered anything close to this level of friction, opacity, and distrust.

Fortunately, I was able to transfer my funds out and terminate the relationship.

Prospective clients should proceed with extreme caution. Understand that once your funds are in, control can effectively shift away from you under the broad umbrella of “compliance” and “safeguarding,” with very limited recourse in practice.

Check all the reviews and the negative experiences shared on TrustPilot and you will have the proof that this bank is causing nightmares to many clients under the pretext of compliance.

This experience left a lasting impression, primarily a loss of trust, not just in this institution, but in banking processes that claim to prioritize the client while operating in a fundamentally one-sided manner.

This is not banking as it should be.

Do not proceed without understanding your risks, you are relinquishing significant control of your account to the Banks sole discretion, 2. Do not expect the Jersey Team to be imbued with expertise in different jurisdictions despite selling themselves as an "Expat" Bank 3. Their tactics are to overload you with documentary evidences to protect themselves with the Regulator and Ombudsman justifying their restrictions and kicking the process into the "long grass" 4. Do not expect ease of access to their Safeguarding staff once you have been provided with their voluminous list of documents and do expect multiple telcon security questions almost designed to trip you up, they really dont want to talk to you and will fail you even for pre-booked calls three weeks prior 5. Do expect misrepresentations and duplitous behaviors, commitments were made in writing to pay emergency school fees from my restricted funds which they failed to remit and failed to answer any emails or calls to discuss status and disclose their intentions, I was forced to take a loan and transfer property ownership to my wife as loan security until they released the funds 6 months after the due date. This Bank will treat you with impunity for discretionary perceived risk and anyone opening or maintaining an account with this Bank should proceed with extreme caution as they are focused entirely on avoiding regulator penalties, the so called "safeguarding" team do not talk to the onboaring team so do not expect your KYC compliance and congratulatory "Welcome to your Expat Account" means you are cleared, only AFTER you remit funds and the account holder terms and conditions apply do they ask detailed questions. My funds over GBP250K were frozen for a year to the day with the Ombudsman effectively stating the Banks is entitled to ask questions straight after my sole remittance and effectively deploy this entrapment approach coercing you to activate the account then to restrict funds within 10 days despite your KYC disclosure. This ancient relic of a bank has seen better days, far better options exist for Expats and clearly now singularly motivated solely to protect their self interest and paranoia with regard to more punitive fines and penalties globally. I sincerely hope this saves anyone from the lost year of my life being placed in severe financial jeopardy for being too trusting in the Banks processes. Finally, If you are assigned a certain Mr Mark Rabet Senior Safeguarding Officer, a salaried jobsworth I stongly encourage you immediately request a replacement Case Officer, given his track record on here and other platforms. Committing to pay school fees then not following through is tantamount to clear unethical behaviour and you have very little recourse in Jersey - avoid at all costs and protect your assets and family.

Wasted 6 months applying for an account, answering endless questions, about tiny sums of money lent to me my mother before she passed away. After 6 months received two more silly questions but was too busy to answer them at the time so asked the onboarding staff member Philip Lemos to wait a week or so while I looked into his questions. He didn't bother, and returned the questions unanswered. As a result, the application was rejected. Complete and utter waste of time!

I’ve been a client of HSBC since 2018 and I like the fact that you can earn interest in multiple currencies in just one place and they pay good rates in dollars and Hong Kong dollars that I use a lot.

This organisation is utterly incompetent. Communicating with them is close to impossible and they are unable to even manage the basics of a banking system. Despite repeatedly providing them with every document they want, they respond with threats to close my account because the don't have the documents I submitted.

HSBC can not be trusted. The bank got heavily fined for example for money laundering and violating the Bank Secrecy Act. They have been winding down their operations outside of Asia. This means trying to get rid of their non-Asian customers. They do that by, for example, insisting on customers to provide non-existent documents in numerous customer reviews. When you fail to do that, they will freeze your account making it very difficult to get your money back.

Avoid HSBC if you are not living in Asia and want to keep your money safe. Their non-Asian customers are no longer welcome. HSBC can not be trusted.

Abysmal. One of the worst experiences I have ever had with any organisation and that is really saying something in modern Britain,

I was considering moving my offshore account from another large UK bank due to their appalling service and then I discovered HSBC. I cannot call the Jersey number as for some reason my 'phone won't allow me to. So I called several numbers provided by HSBC on their own website. *Every single number*, *even* those listed for use by *Non-HSBC customers* asks you for your HSBC account details. Even when you call a number suggested by HSBC for those people who DO NOT HAVE an HSBC account.

There is no means of communication with HSBC if you are not an existing customer, uless of course you write a letter or visit a branch, and I very much doubt that either of those methods would elicit any sort of meaningful response.

In short, I will bow to the inevitable and remain with the wretched bank I am currently using and forego the pleasure of parking money with HSBC.

I’m thinking about becoming an ex pat hsbc customer. However, I was very concerned when I read all the negative reviews relating to customer service, inefficiency, antiquated systems, delays, costly telephone calls and frozen accounts. And unlike other companies I’m not sure if HSBC is using the feedback on here to improve its service. I phoned today to try to find a little more information and it didn’t instil much confidence and like you all say, costly phone calls. I haven’t read any feedback regarding the online chat service. Is this not a good service for helping us resolve problems without the frustration of knowing it’s increasing the phone bill? Today I asked them about this but I am not able to use this until I am a customer so I can’t seem to get any advice except for what’s available to read online. I also asked what sort of accounts do they want and why are they freezing them. I didn’t really get a clear answer.

The security protocols the bank uses must have been decided why Noah was at work. Amongst the security questions: "when did you last log on". Who on earth remembers that. Try and talk to someone and you are subjected to numerous security questions, just to talk. They really don't want customers to contact them, and even worse they don't listen and don't care. Anyway, I was going to invest quite a large sum with them, but will not now.

Do not go near this bank I am trying to receive a statement from a closed account and all i got is call centre staff who refuse to transfer me to compliance. We have sent all the id verification and tracked and received and they are denying they have got it even though
I have signed notice of receipt. 6 phone calls and no further forward shocking. Staff also refuse to give complaints process! Shocking we have funds left in Limbo and cannot get passed the call centre. They were awful when we were customers so should expect nothing less really!

After 5 years with HSBC Expat, I genuinely believed I was dealing with a professional and reliable institution—until the day they abruptly asked me to close my account due to “new country restrictions,” without ever providing a clear or written explanation.
What followed was unacceptable. My accounts, activities, and investments were fully blocked, leaving me unable to access my own funds. Transferring my money to another bank took over 4 weeks, during which I was forced to spend hundreds of dollars on international phone calls just to get basic updates.
To make matters worse, my assigned relationship manager completely stopped responding to my calls and emails. After the account closure, HSBC Expat refused to communicate with me via email altogether, insisting that all discussions happen only by phone.
Even more concerning, I was asked to provide my destination bank details verbally over the phone, including a long IBAN, instead of through a secure written or documented channel. This approach effectively left no written trace of critical instructions, which is deeply troubling for a financial institution handling client funds.
What is even more alarming is that I personally know dozens of other HSBC Expat clients who faced the exact same situation at the same time—accounts frozen, forced closures, no explanations, and weeks of uncertainty. This clearly points to a systemic issue, not an isolated case.
Throughout this entire process, I recorded all phone calls and retained all account statements and correspondence, purely to protect myself and maintain an accurate record of events. Sadly, this was necessary due to the lack of transparency and accountability shown.
This experience made me feel powerless—as if my money was locked away with no accountability. The service was impolite, unprofessional, and handled without any empathy.
I can confidently say this has been my worst banking experience ever, and I will never engage with any HSBC-branded institution again. Thankfully, I’m out now.
If you currently hold an account with HSBC Expat, I strongly urge you to consider closing it and moving your funds to a more transparent and trustworthy institution—before you are forced into the same situation.

I joined HSBC Expat several years ago and relied on it for my job savings. After years of using their service without issue, I unexpectedly received an email informing me that I needed to close my account.
While closing an account may be within their rights, the way they handled the process was utterly pathetic and felt incredibly unprofessional. I felt as though I were dealing with a crime organization rather than a reputable bank.
The Major Issues:
Immediate Lockout: They locked me out of my banking functions without warning and didn't even allow me to initiate transfers to my own external bank accounts.
Incompetent Support: Their customer service team was completely unprepared to handle the account closure request. It took me several frustrating weeks and numerous calls to sort out what should have been a straightforward process.
Recommendation: Do not trust this bank with your money. The lack of professionalism and the stress they caused by restricting access to my own savings was staggering. I am so glad I am finally done with them

Me and many customer at HSBC Expat as well as HSBC UK suffering from review team, they holding our bank account for long time, you can withdraw any single cent, you under pressure by answering hundreds questions for each single transaction.
For anyone who is suffering from either HSBC Expat or UK, please join this group HSBC UK Complaints and service in Facebook
We are escalating this topic and highlight in social media, official media and newspaper,
Please join and raise your voice

Utter incompetence

The worst banking experience I have ever had. They operate at 1970s level, there must be serious lack of investment in their back end as its takes them a minimum of 7 days and about 6 phone calls where I was out in hold for 15 minutes at a time only to be told I had to call back in 48 hours and this was to fix a minor problem. I feel sorry for their customer service staff as they have to deal with frustrated customers like me. I am now going to find an alternative bank.

I think HSBC Expat is possibly the worst bank I have ever used. I was lied to by my Client Rep constantly over the 3 months I had my account. The support staff do what they can be seem to be unable to do anything useful except "set up a callback".

I would avoid HSBC Expat, probably better off keeping your money under your bed