Yep, my husband recently went to a foreign country on a business trip. He was given only a couple days notice so no time to get local currency in advance. No problem, we thought, that's what ATMs are for. He got to the airport there and went to the ATM to get local currency. Declined... Just then he got a text message from HSBC "Just go to the local HSBC branch" the text said. So, he called me so I could try to sort it out here. Turns out HSBC stopped allowing withdrawals at non-HSBC banks not in Qatar "for security reasons". When you are in a city with NO HSBC ATM it doesn't help for them to tell you that you should just go to the local ATM. We got no notice of this change of policy.
The really annoying part is that it didn't occur to the people I talked to that this would be an inconvenience or impossible. On this business trip, he would have had to take an AIRPLANE to get to the 'nearest' HSBC. After he got back, I went to the bank to talk to them about our upcoming trip to Jordon. No problem, they said, we have lots of ATMs in Amman. Fine, but we aren't going to Amman. Oh, no problem, all you need to do is drive into Amman to use an ATM... Yeah, right.
I'd switch banks but now we have our car loan with them... I don't even want to think about what they would do with that if we took our money and ran.
Yep, my husband recently went to a foreign country on a business trip. He was given only a couple days notice so no time to get local currency in advance. No problem, we thought, that's what ATMs are for. He got to the airport there and went to the ATM to get local currency. Declined... Just then he got a text message from HSBC "Just go to the local HSBC branch" the text said. So, he called me so I could try to sort it out here. Turns out HSBC stopped allowing withdrawals at non-HSBC banks not in Qatar "for security reasons". When you are in a city with NO HSBC ATM it doesn't help for them to tell you that you should just go to the local ATM. We got no notice of this change of policy.
The really annoying part is that it didn't occur to the people I talked to that this would be an inconvenience or impossible. On this business trip, he would have had to take an AIRPLANE to get to the 'nearest' HSBC. After he got back, I went to the bank to talk to them about our upcoming trip to Jordon. No problem, they said, we have lots of ATMs in Amman. Fine, but we aren't going to Amman. Oh, no problem, all you need to do is drive into Amman to use an ATM... Yeah, right.
I'd switch banks but now we have our car loan with them... I don't even want to think about what they would do with that if we took our money and ran.