After having been introduced to Bella and the apartment we are now taking care of, we went out and looked for a place were we could work. That is, someplace with a free WiFi connection. We ended up at Swiss Cottage Sprinkles Gelato on Finchley Road. We ordered hot chocolate and cake with warm custard sauce, and got to work.

Applying for an HSBC bank account

The objective was to finish the application for a business current account with HSBC. For that, we had just bought a Lebara SIM card at a local store.

The internet connection was not very fast and the HSBC website is badly set up. Each and every time you move from one field to the next, it connects to the server. Which means: waiting. Sometimes we had to wait so long that the connection timed out. So what was promoted as a 20 minute job took us over 2 hours to complete. Furthermore, in many -but not all- cases, you need to press the red Continue-button twice in order for it to work. All in all a case of very bad programming.

Some of the questions were impossible to answer, because they had nothing to do with our business. But we could not continue without answering them, so we filled in something imaginary. And then we needed a second UK mobile phone number, because they do not accept two people with the same phone number. Fortunately, we were not far from the store where we had bought the SIM card, so Christophe hopped over to buy a second one.

Finally, by the end of the afternoon, we had everything filled in and were asked to identify ourselves and verify our living addresses. We knew this was going to happen, so we had everything prepared for it at hand.

If it were easy, everybody would do it…

First, it didn’t work because the software is incompatible with Safari. So we switched to Chrome. But then, the software determined that the webcam of my MacBook is not good enough, so the only option left was to visit a HSBC branch.

It was too late for that then, and I was more than fed up with the whole process, so we decided we would do that first thing Monday morning. Come Monday, I called the phone number given and tried to make an appointment with someone from the business department of HSBC, because while we are here, we would like to make sure that HSBC understands our business and grants us an account. However, we were informed that it takes them 2 to 3 weeks to review our application, and that they will call us if they have any questions. We could, however, go to any HSBC branch to show our ID’s and proof of address.

So Monday afternoon, we went to an HSBC branch with a unit that services businesses and tried to be identified. This was impossible, because in fact, we had not finished the entire application and could not be identified before that. Nor could the man who helped us help us finish the application with us. Exasperated, we left their office.

This morning, we found the email they had sent to Christophe and finalised our application. What’s more, the camera on Christophe’s MacBook is good enough, so we could even do the identification online. All that is left now is to keep our fingers crossed and wait for them to contact us with the verdict. Let’s hope they will grant us the account without further ado.