Thread: Hsbc sold

so where is our banking wizard Ed Bowers on this , your thoughts Ed? , other than service can only improve

I was happy with HSBC. Received free wires from my HSBC account in Canada. Never money lost like other talk about. Thankfully never have to wait in line for dozens of others. Would be nice if there was more atms in the interior. 3 of the 4 are in walking distance to each other. The mall had the ATM frame for months before it was hooked up.

On a side note Citibank in Panama is still using Grupo Uno's outdated online banking system from 2006. Even the copyright notice is from 2007 still.

https://secure.grupo-uno.com/bunonline/login.aspx

Let's assume that combined incompetence of HSBC and Bancolombia will produce equally poor results.

Whenever I deal with Panamanian banks I expect the worst banking experience ever and they have always managed to come in way below.

Let's face it, HSBC and whatever other bank draw their talent from the same group of people as all the other banks. There is none and will never be any good banks in Panama as they all need Panamanians to operate.

Originally Posted by holl1

Let's assume that combined incompetence of HSBC and Bancolombia will produce equally poor results.

I have banked with both for many years. Bancolombia is light years ahead of HSBC Panama in systems and quality of service. Bancolombia is by far the best bank that I have had experience with.

Originally Posted by Opinion

I have banked with both for many years. Bancolombia is light years ahead of HSBC Panama in systems and quality of service. Bancolombia is by far the best bank that I have had experience with.

Has your experiecnce been with Bancolombia in Panama? How about their online banking? HSBC actually moved up to 1980 recently by allowing download of your account in a pdf. Woooo

The questions are the following about Bancolombia.

1. Can you conveniently pay for taxes and tasa unica online?
2. Can you buy credits with Movistar and other companies?
3. Can you pay your bills to Gas Fenosa, IDAAN?
4. What do they charge exactly for outgoing/incoming wire transfers?

The next question is what will happen? Do they intend to transfer all HSBC clients and offices over to Bancolombia? I don't think so as their platform cannot possibly support the legacy systems HSBC uses.

So, 8 years from now you will still be using HSBC's shitty online banking for your existing accounts unless you physically close it and manually open a new one with Bancolombia.

Bancolombia appears to have an international banking license so I guess they don't even have sistema clave, ACH and a lot of other stuff you could expect from the local banks.

It will just be a bunch of farmers sitting around just like Citibank with outdated technology and slow/useless websites. Or they whip out a new platform and put all customers through 2 years of hell with bugs/mistakes/account issues.

Hey Opinion, can you answer?

Originally Posted by holl1

Let's face it, HSBC and whatever other bank draw their talent from the same group of people as all the other banks. There is none and will never be any good banks in Panama as they all need Panamanians to operate.

Where should the employees come from to be up to your standards? How about a bank run by a computer? (remember HAL?)

Originally Posted by Opinion

I have banked with both for many years. Bancolombia is light years ahead of HSBC Panama in systems and quality of service. Bancolombia is by far the best bank that I have had experience with.

Let s hope you are right. When Panama was a nicer place to live with less traffic, Chase Manhattan Panama provided great service. Then HSBC bought their Panama portfolio and fired all the good Panamanian manages which Chase had trained in the US. Finally, some British genius ordered that MEXICANS should manage the Panama branch. The rest is history which you can read about when you google the words "HSBC", "Panama" and "sucks".