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After Public Outcry From Customers, Britain's Biggest Bank HSBC Heads Off Complaints Over Small Business Account Closures (theguardian.com)
Julia Kollewe writing for The Guardian: HSBC has rushed to head off complaints from small businesses that found the bank had frozen or closed down their accounts as part of a crackdown on financial crime. Hundreds of small firms are thought to be affected, whose businesses range from an avocado importer to marketing and design companies. Britain's biggest bank, which has faced accusations of reacting slowly to the debacle, said that after becoming aware of problems in the past week, it was putting extra staff on its helpline and speeding up the process for dealing with complaints. It said staff were reducing the amount of time to unfreeze an account once a review had been completed. Earlier on Monday, Richard Davey, an HTML5 game developer and creator of Phaser, shared his ordeal dealing with HSBC, which had suspended transactions from his accounts without much explanation. It was only after thousands of users brought it to the company's attention on social media that the company fixed Davey's account, he said.
Don't bank with HSBC unless you're a drug kingpin needing to launder money.
The US does this, too. There have been dozens of stories of small business owners having their accounts frozen for "structuring," or making multiple payments or withdraws under $5,000. Transactions over $5000 are reported to the government, so it supposedly is "shady" if you are doing multiple transactions below that limit. Problem is, some people make these types of transactions during regular business. Once frozen, it's up to the business owner to prove to the government that their transactions were legitimate, which can take months, during which time they can't access the money in their bank, which usually drives them out of business.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Oh - I forgot, big business crime is considered normal and good.
Seriously, HSBC might just be committing a damn fine crime by doing this..
Awp....There I go again - Any way to take little people's money is just good ethical business practice.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I had an HSBC US personal checking account earlier last/this year, and I wrote to them saying that this was the most inept, understaffed, lack-of-executive attention operation at a bank that I'd ever seen.
I experienced months of hearing nothing from them after opening an account online, the worst mobile app ever, nonsensical online password procedures, 30+ minute phone help line waits, and then to top it all off, an IRS form 1099-R delivered 2 weeks before the tax due date this spring.
If you ever come to realize that companies are a lot like people and they have their own personalities, then you will find that HSBC (and Wells Fargo) are senile old people who nonetheless still want to be seen as growing and profiting, but taking shortcuts and leaving behind sloppy messes of customer accounts in disarray and miscommunication.
Executives at the top who don't want to get into the details, and order things like, "I want to see customer numbers growing, and I don't care how you do it or what it takes! And it had better not cost us a lot to get it!"
I hope they get fined into the stone age so that someone realizes you can't run a bank on the cheap. Or at least, cheap in the functions that matter.
Is this post a joke, if not:
You do know banks keep history right?
you simply don't freeze the account until you have the evidence. That way you don't freeze random innocent peoples accounts, which can stop them doing things like buying food to eat, paying rent, etc. In the case of companies paying wages which mean employees can buy food etc.
Yes the fraud would continue for longer, but its not like it hasn't being going for a long time already.
Banks are for suckers. Smart people use credit unions.
I don't respond to AC's.
I also view this story as a warning against an over-reliance on pay-to-play online services. What happens if it's not a banking issue, but a simple lack of funds that causes a scenario like this? Granted, with an online presence of any sort you can't exactly do completely without paid services, but at the very least, for example, if you actually own copies of your software that aren't tied to the cloud, you can simply choose not to upgrade them, and they'll continue working forever. Slack is handy, but it's a third party service that can, in theory, disappear at any moment. I've seen people building critical infrastructure into these types of tools, and I think they're insane.
Instead, having all these online services chewing at your bank account every month means you have few options when it comes to tightening your belt for a short period, something that nearly all small businesses run into at one time or another.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
not aggregated curated garbage from a shit American site that restricts speech.
Slashdot IS a news aggregator site, what the hell is you problem?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Investigating crime and punishing wrongdoing is not the bank's job.
The British government places certain, strict responsibilities on banks when it comes to business accounts, especially when it comes to identifying who is the ultimate beneficiary. These requirements have changed quite a lot in recent years, with the last round of changes being as late as last autumn - here's a link to a relevant page on the government's official site: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/.... It's sort of in the middle of the Money Laudering Regulations, but it sums up the gist of things: they are really keen on making life difficult for white collar criminals, and it will only get tougher. I think this is well overdue - London has been far too easy for shady, financial activity for a long time. Unfortunately, it places a burden on the banks that they have not done enough to lift, for example by training staff to understand the regulations and know how to deal with affected, but legitimate customers, so a lot of particularly smaller companies, who really didn't see this coming, have got into trouble and have no-one capable of giving them advice. In most cases it ought to be simple enough, but when faced with the question "Who is the ultimate beneficiary?" a small, 2-person company may not understand what they are talking about, and unfortunately, the support staff at the bank appear to be unable to translate it into language that people do understand. I worked with a small business who got thrown out because of this - the company owner started on a long story, which only served to make them look suspicious; it would have helped a lot if the bank staff had had enough insight into things to say "In your type of business, what we are after is simply the director that is registered with Companies House" - weirdly, HSBC's account managers are not allowed to refer to Companies House (which is the official register of companies in UK and freely available online), but have to use an intermediary, who do little more than skim information from Companies House - but in this case were some 10 years out of date. Bizarre, but such is life.
Unfortunately, I also have a business account with HSBC, and was brought into the 'Safeguard' process on 21 JUN (under threat of account closure).
After making an appointment, I spent a long time on the phone for a very detailed interview about by business and how funds arrive and why they leave the account. There were some oustsanding documents required, I was assured an email would be sent to follow up, detailing what was required. It never arrived, I learned later that the the person taking the call managed to miss-spell my email address and website, and the bounce of non-delivery wasn't understood/actioned.
After some time passed, phoning to enquire about status I eventually got an email request for more information on 2 AUG, that I supplied. After 7 days I asked for an update, I got a HSBC response that the review is with the Processing Team. This matters, as the people you can actually talk to are HSBC, it seems communication is all never direct between Processing Team and us, the customer. Anyway, 18 days later I declare my unhappiness by email, and get .... nothing.
On 30 AUG I get another request by email for info, that I reply to, and ask for an update given the near zero communication. A few days into SEP I get the final notice:
"IMPORTANT NOTICE: Suspension of your payment services and closure of your HSBC Business Banking / Corporate accounts."
Well **** me, stuff got real. I phone HSBC (they cant respond or comment because the processing team is dealing with it and there is nobody available). Awesome.
Despite continued efforts to communicate with HSBC over Safeguard, their inability to communicate effectively with me, has resulted in my business accounts being put on notice for closure! At this point, one has to start implementing contingencies, as there is now a very real chance that this ineptly implemented bank process will actually kill my accounts / business.
I'm gob-smacked by how this process has been handled, what the hell is wrong with these people? I've logged a formal complaint for the good it will do. Meanwhile, contingency planning is now in action - I can't put faith that I will receive a letter that this was all a terrible mistake. I have 8 weeks from now before my business gets killed.
If you use HSBC for business banking and receive money from all over the world, be very afraid, they are not in your corner. Diversify your business banking as a matter of priority, no one bank should hold all your company assets and payments.