Ordinary Gweilo

Curmudgeonly old Fumier has been indulging in the popular sport of bashing HSBC.  His rant was very entertaining, but his only real issue with HSBC seems to be that they are forcing him to register for Internet banking.  I have to say that I am a big fan of this service, and as far as I know, in the unlikely event that someone hacks into your account and steals all your money the bank would still be liable – unless they could prove that you done something really dumb like acessing your account in an Internet cafe and then leaving the security device next to the PC. 

As far as I am concerned it certainly beats using their automated phone service or visiting the actual bank to do transactions.  Possibly if you have a Premier account and can speak to a real person at the bank and ask them to carry out transactions for you at any time of the day or night then you might not need or want to use Internet banking, but even then it’s probably quicker to use Internet banking.

Admittedly it has become a little less convenient since HSBC started issuing their curious little security devices and requiring you to press a button to generate a security code each time you use the service. Unless you carry the thing round, you can only use Internet banking from home, but so far this hasn’t caused me any aggravation.

Which apparently leaves me better off than Phil from Flagrant Harbour, who can’t use the service at all because dear old HSBC haven’t sent him his security device.  Now that really would make me angry.