HSBC Transfer Time

Earlier this week, I initiated the process to move my eFund to my new HSBCdirect account. In addition, I had my first recurring deposit in my new account this week.

Transfers A Little Slow.
My recurring deposit is scheduled for every Monday, with this week being the first week of activity. The notice of the deposit being confirmed did not arrive until yesterday, which means it arrived on the 3rd day after initiating the transfer. With ING, my recurring deposits always seemed to be in my account the following business day but no later than the 2nd day. In this day and age, it amazes me to see the delay because the transaction should really be conducted in real-time.

After opening the account, I had read a few reviews that indicated HSBC is on the slow side with the time it takes to complete a transfer. In addition, I had read (but have not confirmed) that HSBC runs transactions through CashEdge and that CashEdge sits on the transfers a little longer than others to squeeze out that little bit of extra money. Does anyone know if this is accurate? I’ve only read this online so take that for what it is worth.

The other transfer that I initiated on Monday was the actual transfer of my eFund from ING to HSBC. That deposit did not arrive in my HSBC account until today, but to be fair the transaction was not initiated until late Monday evening. So the time to complete the transfer is about the same as the time for the recurring deposit.

Initiate Elsewhere.
From what I have read, it is best if you can initiate the transfer to HSBC from the other institution as then it typically will arrive a little sooner. Unfortunately, ING does not permit you to link a savings account as they require a check to be written from a checking account in order to establish the link. So that was not an option for the transfer of the eFund. The recurring deposit could be initiated from my bank or as a change to my direct deposit, but for the time being I will leave it with HSBC.

If you cannot initiate the transfer elsewhere, one tip that I have learned is to initiate the transfer over the weekend or on either Monday or Tuesday. If you wait until Wednesday or later to initiate the transfer, you will have to add the weekend into the time to complete the transfer and that means less money in your pocket.

Overall I am still getting used to some of the quirks with HSBCdirect and I am really missing the feature at ING to log in and get an update on the interest earned up to the previous day, but I will enjoy the extra money due to the higher rate.

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7 Responses

  1. Congrats on winning the John Chow contest!!

  2. Thanks, I was contacted by John late last night and need to get a post up about winning the prize!

  3. I work for CashEdge and am responding to your question about whether or not CashEdge “sits on the transfers a little longer than others to squeeze out that little bit of extra money.” CashEdge uses standard ACH guidelines to transfer money from one account to another. We do not take make any income, interest or otherwise, off of the funds we transfer. We make our money from our financial institution clients for the services we provide them. You can read more about NACHA guidelines here: http://nacha.org/ACH_Rules/ach_rules.htm

  4. mnc says:

    @Manish: Thanks for the reply! It is good to know that CashEdge does not sit on the transfer as I had read in other places. However, I do still stand by my comment that the transfers are taking longer between my bank and HSBC than they did between my bank and ING.

    Thanks for the link to the NACHA guidelines and for responding!

  5. Mike says:

    I just noticed this-I’m an HSBC cutomer, and am still waiting to receive funds I transferred from the US last Wednesday-now it’s Tuesday. Terribly slow. Otherwise I like HSBC.

  6. Jamie says:

    This is horrible slow. I had a transfer that I initiated on Tuesday. The money was removed from my local bank on Wednesday and I revieved an email on Friday morning stating that the funds had been removed from my local account , but they would take another day to post into HSBC. I understand that with the transaction volume they see realtime may not be possible, but nightly batch processing should handle the task in two days. There is no excuse for a 4-5 day delay.

  7. Rob says:

    I had a problem with HSBC and a transfer I made. They canceled the transfer and locked me out of my account because they said why did I deposit and withdraw funds within a week. A red flag went up for them. Both my checking accounts were valid, verified by trial deposits. I was asked to submit the statement from the bank it came from. My funds at HSBC were “balance available”. I believe the security is overkill, now an inconvenience me to, I am closing my account. I was told the funds have to get back in, probably 3 business days, I said they never left???

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