It’s a bit like a marriage isn’t it? You and your Bank get together, for better or worse. Sometimes it turns out well and everything’s idyllic. Sometimes you think it’s a cheating thug you’ve got married to, but most times you just bumble along. There are days when you seriously consider divorce; you may even flirt with other Banks, and then there’s the days when the Bank comes up trumps when you’re in a tight corner.

Then I went to work for them and I learnt something which applies to every Bank, large or small, online or High Street. They are only as good as the people who work for them. We parted company after two years with little regret on either side although the one thing that they probably did regret at the time was that I left my account with them.

If you are someone who is having difficulty in making ends meet, or even spot each other in the distance then no Bank is going to like you and HSBC is no different in this respect. Nor, indeed, should it be. It’s a publicly quoted company and it’s the shareholders who ultimately pay if money proves to be irrecoverable. Quite rightly they’re not keen on this, so HSBC has a firm (some say aggressive) approach to such accounts. I do think that they could be better at communicating with people and helping them to understand their finances, but I wouldn’t recommend them to those who struggle. For one thing their current account pays a derisory rate of interest and you can do far better with some of the online Banks who will at least give you a reasonable return on the money that you have in a current account. I’d be having a look at Cahoot or Zurich at the moment.

So far as mortgages are concerned, they’re worth considering. Their rates are reasonably competitive if not at the top of the league tables. They also calculate interest on a daily basis rather monthly or annually. Over the period of a loan this can provide quite a substantial saving. Whilst they held our mortgage I was a little concerned about the fact that they seemed to see this as an opportunity to market other products and obviously thought that my unwillingness to take up their offers sprang from ignorance or stupidity (“you really ought to speak to one of our financial advisors, Mrs Magee. They’d explain all this to you.”). I became tired of being accosted in the branch and finally took delight in explaining the Bank’s shortcomings to one rather pushy young lady, much to the glee of the crowded banking hall. (“I really ought to be going, Mrs Magee, if I can’t help you with your house contents insurance” “No. Do let me explain to you what happened when you completely messed up my Direct Debits for three months in a row”) I was left alone after that.

HSBC originally introduced telephone banking as a way to move customers and staff out of expensive High Street branches to call centres which are much cheaper to run. It was no longer possible to pick up a telephone and speak to someone in your local branch – you were redirected to a call centre. This seemed to me a retrograde step as the staff were frequently ill-informed when you got past the inevitable music which accompanied the queuing system. It was also incapable of dealing with requests to do something in the future, such as transferring funds when a cheque had cleared, which still had to be done by someone noting down all the details and then hoping that it got done on the right day. Usually it didn’t. Telephone Banking is still in place (and has improved) but has been supplemented by Internet Banking.

So, would I recommend HSBC to a friend? Well, yes I would, provided that they were computer literate and financially secure. Otherwise, I doubt that I would.