I often receive strange requests via the contacts page, and this week I got this:
*I’m an HSBC account holder and been using my ATM card to obtain cash here in pattaya Thailand, the card stopped working today, how can I continue to have access to my money? *
My correspondent had obviously thrown “HSBC” and “Pattaya” into Google and come up with one of my posts, and from that decided I was exactly the person he should contact with his problem; rather than, say, HSBC. Naturally I was my usual magnanimous self and provided him with extensive, helpful, instructions which could be summarised as “phone your bank”.
For indeed HSBC no longer offer a personal banking service in Thailand and I had to move my extensive personal portfolio (3,400 baht and a rather large credit card balance) to Bangkok Bank. And they have proved to be excellent. Once I have waited in line and gained the attention of one of their tellers, they have been most happy to open accounts, give me internet banking and shower me with documentation.
A credit card was a little more difficult to obtain. When I first joined HSBC I was semi-gainfully employed, earning embarrassingly large amounts of money (oh, the toys Jimmy, you should have seen all the toys I bought. And the women Jimmy, you should have seen all the women I waved my wallet at; until she who must be obeyed came along and stopped me).
In these cash-rich circumstances HSBC were very happy to provide me with a super-gold-platinum -rare metal not found on earth- credit card; which I could wave at shop assistants with only the slightest hint of superiority and thus obtain their phone number (again, until SWMBO came along).
With the departure of HSBC I was on the verge of being credit cardless; a completely unacceptable condition for both myself and the shareholders of eBay. Bangkok Bank had a solution. I gave them a lump of cash on fixed deposit, they gave me a credit card with a limit of about half the lump of cash. Naturally I immediately destroyed the card by ramming it into an ATM machine instead of my ATM card, alternatively screaming and feeding it the incorrect code until the machine swallowed it and spat out a message along the lines of “you’re fucked”. Straight on the phone to their help desk on a Sunday afternoon where a very nice man calmed my shattered nerves and advised that a new card would be sent out the following morning at no charge. It arrived on the Tuesday. I love Bangkok Bank.
But they were not enough. Bangkok Bank was fine for managing the affairs of the massive Spike financial empire; but I needed a back-up for my regular use. I chose K-bank, for the following reasons:
They are next to Bangkok Bank in Central Mall. They have a nice spacious waiting area for all the waiting you always have to do. Their logo is green. I like green. Their tellers are cute. I like cute.
Notice that my deliberations put slightly less emphasis than you might expect on the financial standing of the enterprise. I’m an ex-accountant, that shit bores me.
Anyway, I presented myself to open an account armed with the usual requisites (passport, patience) and was rather disappointed to be served by a member of my own gender. Never mind, he was very efficient and immediately laid out the seventeen forms required to open an account. With the usual due diligence I allowed him to fill them in while I stared wistfully at the vision sat at the next table, and then signed whatever he put in front of me.
Formalities complete, he produced an ATM card which was surprisingly blank, together with a little book of patterns. What design did I want on my ATM card? Huh? Apparently I could chose from a wide range of garish cartoons so I could make an appropriate statement about myself when brandishing my ATM card. They all seemed to be making the same statement: dick; so I asked the man to choose one for me with the firm instruction it should not feature Doraemon, Hello Kitty or anything that could be interpreted as being an engorged member.
But we were not finished. I was then led to a machine in the middle of the bank which apparently held a camera, set at a level appropriate for a small Thai, but not for a tall farang. I therefore had to crouch as if I was performing over a squat toilet, and I must have embraced the role because my expression in the photo is one of a man caught in mid-shit, with other customers in the background clearly laughing at my antics. Mix that in with cartoon which appears to feature blue Japanese sheep with dead eyes, and you have a card that screams “not a business tycoon”.
Of course once I got home I was in trouble with the wife. I had chosen the wrong colour, the design was crap, and I hadn’t combed my hair. I would have to take it back and demand they change it. I countered with an alternative suggestion, that we use it to withdraw some cash and go out for a nice meal. We agreed that that was a better solution.
So my hideous card continues to be inserted into ATM machines around Thailand. Every time I use it, the bank sends me an SMS to tell me I have withdrawn money, just in case I had forgotten why I was standing at the machine. The SMS usually arrives before the money has even made it out of the little flap thingie. This is followed up by a further SMS a little later telling me my new balance, just in case I had forgotten; and this often arrives around the same time Bangkok Bank sends me an email to tell me I have just logged on to internet banking.
It’s great banking with Thai banks, they provide you with a constant stream of information that tells you what you already know you are doing (unless of course someone had nicked your details and was doing it for you, then it would be alarmingly useful). HSBC stumbled over a monthly statement which arrived by post eventually. Good riddance.