Poor service, not focused on customer. Review on HSBC - Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation

I have banked with Hong Kong Bank and I don't have a good experience with them. I first opened an NRI account with them in 1996. That was the time when India had just allowed the entry of foreign banks. They had very competitive products and services at that time. But within a year or I began to notice that they took their customers for granted. Their products and services were not competitive anymore because their competition had caught up and HSBC was napping around. The bank staff had an arrogant attitude towards the customer as if telling the customer ''you don't have an option''. Guess what there was and I switched to another bank. Even to close an account it took me more that an hour when the officer concerned was sitting right in front of me and yapping all the while.

Then recently(2001) I applied for a home loan with them. Before I applied for the loan I asked them specifically (multiple times)if they would be willing to dispense the entire loan amount as a lum sum instead of in installments. I was told, yes sure. So I went ahead with the whole process of providing all the documents. Even through this process they kept changing their list of required documents. Well any which way they sanctioned my loan, but then they said they will only disburse in installments and I was like, you gotta be kidding me. I told their loan officer that I specifically wanted the loan to be disbursed as a lum sum and now why this pre-condition and they had no answer. Their answer was thats their policy. Well maybe they didn't read their policy when I started their process. It was such a waste of time and energy.

In conclusion this is my impression about HSBC, their staff is very aggressive about doing business and signing up customers that they lose focus of the customer needs. Instead of satisfying the customer needs they are busy selling their products whether the customer needs it or not. Right now banking is so competitive that the products offered by HSBC are not a big deal anymore. ICICI, or even nationalized banks offer similar products and better service.