Supplementary memorandum by HSBC
BASIC BANK
ACCOUNTS
Provision of data to the Committee
I am happy to provide the Committee with the
information requested. The quarterly figures for HSBC held by
the British Bankers' Association as part of their industry aggregate
figures appear below for your convenience. All of our Basic Bank
Accounts are accessible through the Post Office. Our average share
of net openings since 2003 is 15.5%, and for 2005 where figures
are available 19.8%, compared to our market footprint in current
accounts generally of 15%
HSBC Basic Bank Account—net new
openings
|
June-03
| Sep-03 | Dec-03
| Mar-04 | Jun-04
| Sep-04 | Dec-04
| Mar-05 | Jun-05
| Sep-05 |
|
13,000 | 18,000
| 20,000 | 20,000 | 21,000
| 30,000 | 26,000 | 33,000
| 32,000 | 24,000 |
| |
| | | |
| | | |
HSBC Basic Bank Account—number at reporting date
|
June-03 | Sep-03
| Dec-03 | Mar-04
| Jun-04 | Sep-04
| Dec-04 | Mar-05
| Jun-05 | Sep-05
|
|
96,000 | 114,000
| 134,000 | 154,000 | 175,000
| 205,000 | 231,000 | 264,000
| 296,000 | 320,000 |
| |
| | | |
| | | |
ACCESS TO
CASH WITHDRAWALS
AT POST
OFFICE COUNTERS
Views on allowing Post Office to join LINK, remaining banks
signing bilateral agreements to allow access, or setting up a
free-standing scheme operating alongside the LINK card scheme.
All HSBC Basic Bank Account holders can withdraw cash with
no charge at Post Office counters and have unrestricted access
to over 56,000 ATMs. We continue to discuss with the Post Office
the possibility of extending the cash withdrawal service for Basic
Bank Account holders to all of our customers. At this stage the
Post Office has not offered a price that is acceptable to us.
LINK is a scheme based on ATMs, whereas the Post Office is
seeking to provide manned counter withdrawals. This does not fall
within the LINK scheme and we do not support the admission of
the Post Office to the scheme in order to provide counter withdrawals.
We would be supportive of the development of a separate scheme
for counter withdrawals, which we understand LINK would be willing
to develop. However, we do not believe that banks should be forced
to join such a scheme. If the proposition is attractive and affordable,
then banks may join in order to enhance their produce offering
if there is a business case to do so.
With regard to bilateral agreements generally, we believe
that this is a competitive issue which should be left to market
forces. If the withdrawing of funds at the Post Office is an important
service for a customer then they will choose to bank where this
service is offered. We believe that our mix of delivery channels—HSBC
branches, 24-hr telephone banking, internet banking, ATMs—provide
excellent access to cash and information for all of our customers.
OTHER ISSUES
While writing I thought I should outline two other initiatives
recently undertaken by HSBC in relation to credit cards that may
be of interest to the Committee.
— A "budget calculator" has been included
within our credit cards web-site. This helps consumers to compare
income with outgoings and complements our "Borrowing money"
brochure, which was launched in May last year and is freely available
to all.
— A "repayment calculator" has been developed
for our credit cards web-site and is due to be launched in the
first quarter of 2006. It is designed to provide an estimate of
the length of time it would take to repay a balance with a given
range of repayments (eg minimum, £50 or £100). This
will help with consumer understanding of the cost of borrowing
on our cards. We have also implemented these illustrative scenarios
in our marketing material.
I hope that this letter is helpful to the Committee in understanding
how the issues raised have progressed and HSBC's role in the changes
taking place.
January 2006
|
