Singapore is packed with banks from all over the world. Investment banks, regular banks, banks that probably aren't even legal... you name it. This is Banking Island. One would imagine that Banking Island would be the easiest place in the world to get your day to day banking done. Allow me to quote my third financial advisor from HSBC who said apologetically "banking in Singapore is in it's adolescent phase." I wasn't sure what he meant but now I understand he was warning me of the awkward, unpredictable roller-coaster of hoops you jump through to do the most basic things here.
In another post I've touched on the unbelievably long time it takes to do things like set up an additional savings account. I think I had 3 meetings to do this and forms to be sent in and sent back and signed again. This is for customers with other accounts, not new customers! I can set this up from my online login at my banks in other countries and it takes 5 minutes.
Online banking? Oh boy. Here's where it gets really gnarly. I just set up new account with OCBC so I'm documenting the first few weeks of pain. First I got a package in the mail with a CD ROM - I swear I am not making this up. That came with this ridiculous security dongle that generates random numbers which I'll eventually have to punch in after I do all my security trivia and put my other password in. Then I had to mail back a form to the bank to certify that I received this package for them to activate my dongle (even though they sent it registerred mail and got a receipt). Then I got my username in one envelope a few weeks later and then I got my password a few weeks after that. The whole process? 6 weeks. How else could this be done? Well last time I did this in the US it took 10 minutes, my banker turned their computer around and I typed in my password on their computer and then went home and did my online banking. It took ONE day. I'm pretty sure a gawky adolescent could crack this code so I'm going to say that the banking system here is more like something out of the book, 1984, and is being run by someone with limited brain function.
HSBC which has been much better than most of the banks my friend deal with is still pretty crazy. They just sent us a letter in the mail asking us to log into our Singapore accounts and order our new security dongles because our old ones are going to expire at the end of the year. Wait a second, if they already know we need them and they know where we live why don't they just mail them out? Why do we have to go and order them? In fact they could have used that wasted postage to mail them out this week.
The other crazy thing is if you make a typo on your first try putting in your HSBC password the system shuts you out. You can't call them to reactivate you have to go and download and form, print it, sign it and mail it in and they reset your password with all these separate envelopes again.
HSBC Visa called me to tell me there was fraud on my Visa card. They had called on my cell. I said, that's funny, you told me last time you have no phone number on file for me. "That's right ma'am," they answered. "You have to go and fill in a form and send it to us with your phone number on it." To which I said "but you called me!!!" They just repeated the previous sentence and denied that they had called me.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! (And this is only half the crazy banking stories I have so far...)
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