My 9 year marriage to HSBC is over — A case of bad UX and business decisions

Towards the end of 2005 when the U.S. housing bubble was in full swing, HSBC was first big bank to offer unprecedented interest rate of 5+% through its online savings account.

That’s when my relationship with HSBC began.

I recall HSBC web site looking very dated compared to its peers. However it offered an extra sense of security with its 2-stage log-in process that required you to enter randomly generated 20-byte user ID as well as HSBC assigned 8-byte password followed by an 8-byte password of your choice, of which you were asked to only enter 4, presumably to thwart key-logging effort.

Cumbersome yes, but it was a small price to pay to enjoy such high yield.

But I knew the 5% honeymoon wouldn't last forever. Not when the yield curve was inverted, a harbinger to an economic turmoil.

Sure enough only a few months after opening the account, I would wake up to periodic email notices of lowering yields. 4.5%. 4%. 3%, until they stopped sending notices altogether. And I stopped paying attention.

At some point, the yield crashed through the 1% floor, becoming one of the least competitive banks in terms of interest rate offerings.

But I stayed with HSBC. It felt comfortable.

After 8 years of solid banking relationship, I even signed up for HSBC Premier credit card when they dangled 25,000 free points over my gullible head.

But that was the beginning of the end my 9-year marriage to HSBC.

I started noticing things about the web sites that I hadn’t before when I only had HSBC bank account products.

I noticed that HSBC credit card web site was very poorly integrated into its banking site, launching in a separate browser window with a strange domain name. It turns out, the site is hosted by First Data Corp.

I wouldn’t call this an ideal user experience, but I decided to overlook it because once bill-pay is setup, I only needed to log-in once a month.

Then in June of 2014, HSBC security department contacted me to notify of potential security breach. I was told that a new card needed to be issued.

Fine, I thought. These things happen. But this is when things unraveled.

When the new card was issued, HSBC had automatically enrolled me into their paperless statement program rather than carrying over my existing preference of paper-statement; a tactic not too dissimilar to that of telephone companies of yore engaging in ‘slamming’.

And this is where I need to show you how bad UX is on HSBC web sites.

Normally, I would come to this Payment page and perform the following steps:

1. Click “Last Statement Total Balance” radio button.
2. Select a Payment Date.
3. Click “Submit” and log off.

I was in and out in less than a minute.

And the page didn’t look any different when I logged in in June; except the “Submit” button wasn’t working. Clicking on it exhibited no alerts or server-call; it behaved like a dead link. Later attempts resulted in the same non-responsive behavior.

I chalked it up to broken web site and decided to wait for the paper statement to arrive.

A month goes by and no statement, so I log onto the web site and lo and behold, late fee and interest charge had been assessed.

Frustrated, I went back to the Payment page and tried clicking “Submit”. It still wasn’t working!

Finally, I figured out what had happened.

The web site had actually deleted my saved HSBC bank account without my knowledge.

Unfortunately the web site didn’t look or behave any differently than before, so I kept on trying to click “Submit” without success.

The above screenshot shows you how difficult it is to spot the “Add a Bank Account” hyperlink. You would never see it when you’re not expecting it.

Even after figuring out what had happened, more aggravation ensued when I tried to click the “Add a Bank Account” link, as shown below

The HSBC credit card web site would not let me link my HSBC bank account for bill pay. Why?! I inquired customer service but was given no answer.

Now I have to switch browser window from HSBC Credit Card hosted by First Data Corp to HSBC Bank, just to make a payment.

Once back in HSBC bank site, I have to go to “Transfers -> Between Accounts”, pick “To” and “From” as if I’m doing a bank transfer. Then, I need to manually type in the credit card balance amount from the First Data Corp web site.

At this point, the honeymoon was long over and I started noticing other niggling UX issues.

Take the login page for example below. Where is the “Login” button? It’s the most important button of all! You won’t see it.

Not unless you maximize your browser window to 1280 pixels or wider. That is a very high minimum-width requirement.

Case in point#2: Take a look at the screenshots below. Have you ever seen “Add to Cart” button disappear after clicking on it? I had not until I used HSBC, and it’s not because you are limited to one quantity.

You really have to use it understand how bizarre this feels.

I completely understand this is a case of “First World Problem”. It truly is. However as a UX person who designs large-scale web applications, I am appalled at the lack of care that went into creating optimal user experience for HSBC sites in general.

HSBC has been scaling back on its retail banking business but I’d imagine that’s not the case for its online presence. I’ve used many big bank websites and HSBC ranks square at the bottom. Coupled that with poor business practice, I am terminating my relationship with HSBC after 9 years.

In fact, the last two screens are of my cashing out all accrued points before severing the tie permanently.