Big Bank run. | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

No offense, mike, but you could've simply asked for a draft in lieu of cash at no charge. HSBC happily obliges those requests. We'll even provide you with direct line contact information for the receiving financial institution to verify the draft (so they don't place a bank hold on the clearing item). 🙂

Cheers,
Doug

Simon,

HSBC Bank Canada has really refocused its customer and deposit acquisition strategy, targeting the high affluent segment of the market with its Premier package and the emerging affluent segment with its Advance proposition. The minimum entry point to those is the $25,000 in assets (deposits, investments, registered plans, etc.).

HSBC will still welcome retail deposit clients but they aren't targeting their messaging in that area and aren't trying to attract ordinary day-to-day banking accounts with great interest rates or low service charges. Essentially, they're aligning themselves with the HSBC Group change in strategy globally and admitting they don't have the scale to compete with the Big Six banks plus all of the credit unions so why bother trying.

On the lending side, they've joined RBC and BMO in ending relationships with mortgage brokers and even went a step further by terminating its own in-house mortgage development specialists, forcing people who want an HSBC mortgage to come into a branch or call the Direct Bank branch and deal with a telephone-based relationship manager.

It's an interesting strategy and I'll reserve comment on its merits but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

In terms of Commercial Banking though, HSBC is very much in the game focused on small- and medium-sized businesses with its hugely attractive and highly competitive Business Direct and BusinessVantage products.

Cheers,
Doug

I don't have a lot of knowledge on National Bank of Canada but with regard to Canadian Western Bank - and I love that bank, by the way, with their friendly, locally-based staff answering branch phone lines - perhaps their GIC rates are competitive simply because they're targetting the deposit brokers in a bid to secure their capital base? It's just a different strategy than the one HSBC is trying. HSBC tried this strategy with its own Deposit Broker Centre, mobile mortgage sales force and relationships with third-party mortgage brokers, all of which have now been terminated.

I don't know which one is better but I can definitely say that you do need a large branch network to have the scale of the Big Five banks. That requires major capital investment, either organically or through acquisition (the latter of which would require both OSFI and Minister of Finance approval).

Cheers,
Doug

hi guest,

I read it in a few newspaper articles recently, namely Canadian Press wire stories I would imagine. Apparently BMO ended their mortgage broker relationships a year or two ago and have seen mortgage market share fall from 9.7% to 9.2% but it's held steady at 9.2% so a 0.5% drop in share is marginal. I think the primary motivation would be, like HSBC, to get a higher share of the "customer's wallet" and have their mortgage, RRSPs, chequing account, credit card and perhaps a savings account instead of just a mortgage or a mortgage with a low-activity chequing account and less related to certain other reasons you mentioned.

RBC ended theirs either shortly before BMO or after, can't remember which. Both BMO and RBC still have in-house "mobile mortgage specialists" who are employed by the banks on a fully-commissioned or partial-commission and partial-salary basis but they're only permitted to source mortgages for their respective employers (which make sense). I could potentially see Scotiabank eventually follow suit but I really think TD Canada Trust and CIBC will continue to use mortgage brokers because they have such large mortgage market shares and are heavily invested in mortgages from third-parties (like mortgage brokers). CIBC even owns FirstLine Mortgages - which deals solely with mortgage brokers - and another company whose name escapes me.

Hope that helps,
Doug

mike, perhaps by going to Vancouver Main Branch, you got a strict, no deviation, by-the-book staff member? I can assure you had you gone to another branch you would've been able to get a draft the same day you requested it provided you showed two pieces of valid ID.

If any of the Big Five banks or HSBC, the world's largest financial services organization, by then the world's gone to hell and our money has probably depreciated so badly we're in a state not unlike Zimbabwe but on a global scale.

The only ones I worry about staying within the $100,000 per depositor CDIC limit (and joint accounts, deposits marked in trust for someone else and RRSPs are outside your sole depositor CDIC limits) are small banks and trust companies. Credit unions' deposits are guaranteed by provincially-owned Crown corporations but again that guarantee is only as good as the province itself making the guarantee and there's no obligation the federal government would bail the province out.

Cheers,
Doug

It depends on the denominations an ABM carries. Some institutions stock them with all twenties (most common) while others stock them with fifties, twenties and tens. I've yet to see an ABM dispense hundreds but I suppose it's possible.

If you stocked the cassettes with all twenties and assuming it has four cassettes (again, most common but others may have more), then one ABM could conceivably be stocked with $160,000. Unless it was an insanely busy ABM, it would be unlikely the FI would stock it to that level for security purposes and to lower their risk.

Most FIs, however, set maximum daily ABM withdrawal amounts (some, including Scotiabank, have weekly amounts) and maximum daily Interac Direct Payment amounts for your bank card but also have maximum amounts you can withdrawal per instance (generally $500.00 for the Big Five banks, $300.00 for white label ABMs). If you wanted more than the maximum dispense per instance, you would need to do another withdrawal (up to and including your own daily maximum). Nonetheless, I've yet to see an FI that will give you a daily ABM withdrawal limit higher than $2000 per day and that's for their very best, "cream of the crop" customer. If you want more than that, you can go into a bank and ask for any amount from a CSR. Keep in mind, though, unless you make a special cash order in advance - and the bank does have a right to pass along the armoured car shipping costs for that special order, if it is a large cash request (generally over $10,000) the bank can limit the amount you want to withdraw as cash and give you a bank draft in lieu of cash at no cost to you.

Cheers,
Doug