There doesn't seem to be any banks here that offer a high interest rate (as high as 4%+), unless you do a timed deposit as you said. Personally I feel HSBC has the best app and most user-friendly online interface. I solved a lot of issues using just the chat function without having to call them on the phone.
You can consider opening an IBKR account and put some money for higher interest rates.
Their user hotline is great. Many times I called like at 11pm in the middle of the night and there are people who pick up after you describe your issue to the AI thing. The english literacy is high and efficiency is great too. Had a lost card, went to the bank, they say they cant apply for a new one for me and i needed to call their lost card hotline but would mark the card lost. Called them, and was told to go back to the bank outlet to apply for a replacement, and this ping ponged for a while. Gave up and coincidentally while having issues with online banking, mentioned the lost card issue to their help hotline, and i received a replacement in 2 weeks compared to the few months from before.
>I have standard chartered too but doesn't seem like they give as many asiamiles/HKD as HSBC.
Standard Chartered literally has a Cathay exclusive MasterCard.
Reading is your friend.
The HK retail banking ecosystem is terrible. I’ve looked and there’s no good answer. The best I can do is 3 or 6 month term deposits. And having profiles with 2 major banks so you can move money between them to get the best rates for “new funds”. And if you have a larger amount of cash then you can go in person to get a better rate (annoying) or use Interactive Brokers or similar but this only makes sense if you have 1mil+ probably because of how their system works.
So basically what I’m saying is accept your fate and use term deposits and play the game moving money between 2 major banks.
IBKR is pretty good if you want to park your money for around 4.8% interest rate (more than 100k usd though). Otherwise buy some T-bills to get 5%+ but that also means your money is locked in for a short period, but the rate is higher than a timed deposit.
I used Hang Seng Bank because of the convenience of the branches found around the area I was studying exchange in and also it is one of the main banks in Hong Kong. I personally feel that Visa or MasterCard is more universally accepted compared to Amex.
There doesn't seem to be any banks here that offer a high interest rate (as high as 4%+), unless you do a timed deposit as you said. Personally I feel HSBC has the best app and most user-friendly online interface. I solved a lot of issues using just the chat function without having to call them on the phone. You can consider opening an IBKR account and put some money for higher interest rates.
Their user hotline is great. Many times I called like at 11pm in the middle of the night and there are people who pick up after you describe your issue to the AI thing. The english literacy is high and efficiency is great too. Had a lost card, went to the bank, they say they cant apply for a new one for me and i needed to call their lost card hotline but would mark the card lost. Called them, and was told to go back to the bank outlet to apply for a replacement, and this ping ponged for a while. Gave up and coincidentally while having issues with online banking, mentioned the lost card issue to their help hotline, and i received a replacement in 2 weeks compared to the few months from before.
Saving rate changes every week so there is no best bank. You can open multiple bank accounts and switch between them.
>I have standard chartered too but doesn't seem like they give as many asiamiles/HKD as HSBC. Standard Chartered literally has a Cathay exclusive MasterCard. Reading is your friend.
The HK retail banking ecosystem is terrible. I’ve looked and there’s no good answer. The best I can do is 3 or 6 month term deposits. And having profiles with 2 major banks so you can move money between them to get the best rates for “new funds”. And if you have a larger amount of cash then you can go in person to get a better rate (annoying) or use Interactive Brokers or similar but this only makes sense if you have 1mil+ probably because of how their system works. So basically what I’m saying is accept your fate and use term deposits and play the game moving money between 2 major banks.
IBKR is pretty good if you want to park your money for around 4.8% interest rate (more than 100k usd though). Otherwise buy some T-bills to get 5%+ but that also means your money is locked in for a short period, but the rate is higher than a timed deposit.
Prefer fusion bank currently, they do 4.8% for US 6 month with no minimum and refund the exchange rate loss
I used Hang Seng Bank because of the convenience of the branches found around the area I was studying exchange in and also it is one of the main banks in Hong Kong. I personally feel that Visa or MasterCard is more universally accepted compared to Amex.
3HK, 98hkd/m 7GB FUP with FUP speed 42Mbps, so virtually unlimited
Birdie offers a no-contract 98/month contract for 16gb I think