eastcoastguy128

I'm a US citizen going to start a new job next year. I foresee being able to meet the 100K minimum deposit required for either HSBC Premier or CitiGold in the near future. I was wondering if anyone had experience with these services. I expect to travel and potentially do business in both Europe and Asia, including Hong Kong.
I understand that banks catering to Americans have sadly curtailed many freebies that were previously offered. I followed the discussions about uncertainties regarding the Citi Chairman card. CitiGold seems to have an aiport lounge in Prague, which is a plus. Does anyone have specific experience using either CitiGold or HSBC premier banking facilities in Hong Kong and Europe, for example in Prague or London? How helpful have they been in helping you in making transactions and investing in these locations?
What about perks? I understand that CitiGold Select, with a minimum 500K account value is the service that really gets the box seat tickets and other goodies. Has anyone received good tickets or other help from the regular CitiGold service?
I can't meet the spend for Black Amex. Amex Plat concierge is so-so. I noticed in Hong Kong that many businesses (private dining clubs) have deals with Amex Black but not Plat. Quintessentially has been quite helpful in arranging things in HK and I would gather that the Peninsula concierge would have been also.

So, as I am going to build a banking relationship, please let me know which bank's premier service at the 100K level would be the best deal. I can't make the 200K deposit for BofA but they don't actually seem to have such a good global network. It does seem like Citibank has cut the Ultima card which provided additional perks to global customers.

asandrs

I'm Citigold in the US and the UK and also an HSBC Premier customer.

I prefer HSBC, some of the reasons being :

Once you have qualified for Premier in one country you are able to use their Premier facilities in any county whereas with Citi you have to meet their minimum balance requirements in the particular country to qualify for gold in that country ;
HSBC have dedicated Premier lounges and their staff seem more responsive ; HSBC seems to be more of a worldwide bank and seems to be growing whereas Citi seems to be contracting

But Citi does seem to offer better interest rates.

Just my 0.02.

Andy.

eastcoastguy128

Andy:

Thank you very much for the information. I have been a fan of Citibank, but your assessment of the bank "contracting" is unfortunately appropriate. I have not been aware of the detail that one has to qualify for Gold in each particular country. HSBC's approach makes more sense.

biggestbopper

IMHO,m (I was formerly with Citigold) neither one is worth getting too excited about. The benefits are not so great--and, perhaps more importantly, you have to tie up $50-100K at exceedingly low interest rates. I figure my foray with Citigold cost me several grand in lost interest (admittedly, rates were a little higher then, in general) and all I really got was a few bucks saved on forex charges at Citibank ATMs in Europe and Japan. And, maybe $100 in waived wire transfer fees.

I'd rather use something else and keep the $100K flexible. How about a BA Chase card now that there is no forex charge on it?

I also looked into the HSBC Premier at the time and concluded that it was not really worth it either.

But, it is nice to be special.

brooklynmatt

I was just offered HSBC Premier too - I turned it down.

All Premier or Citigold is really is a chance for the bank to lock in your money at no interest and facilitate sales of their proprietary products under teh guise of Wealth Management.

Taking a very conservative approach - 100K in an account that pays sub 1% interest (taxable interest...) so assuming it is 1% you pay say 28% tax provides a return of $720 for your commitment.

If you stick with a regular citi account and keep say 10K in it for short term buffer (plus it is receiving salary from your new job) you have 90K to invest.

Putting this in a AAA Muni gives a 5% Triple Tax free yield:

10K @ .0.25% 25 minus isn't a lot but:
90K @ 5% is 4500 Tax Free.

So do you want 720 cash or 4500 cash per year? And with the difference between the two is it worth what perks you may get?

If you want to feel special is one thing, but if you want to get rich, have your money work for you and really enjoy the system get savvy about your money.

christinasc

I just recently signed up for HSBC premier, moving out of B of A and Citigroup. In my opinion, B of A is now a zombie bank, and they are only looking to eat more fees from their existing customers, no matter how much you have on deposit with them. Citi has never ever cared to help me with my account, although I never had a large amount on deposit with Citi, so I can't say for their citigold service. The only reason I'm keeping my B of A account though is that their ATM network is better than HSBC for fees. Especially if you use Barclays'.

The current HSBC online savings is at 1.1% which is giving a better rate than BoA and most other US based banks. While i'm scrapping the HSBC premier mastercard for accumulating points, I used it for no forex fees when traveling abroad through europe, asia and had no problems a month ago. I'll be moving to a combination of United Plus Chase, Starwood Amex and AA citibank to help rack up the mileage necessary for Cathay/Singapore travel. HSBC has a dedicated airport lounge at the HK airport for premier only as well as in about a dozen other countries in the middle east, asia, europe and latin america. Its not quite as much as say priority pass or other airline lounges but it works fine in Hong Kong. BTW, I must say having checked in luggage at HK MTR for international departure is excellent.... arriving in LAX afterwards made me feel like the USA is very much now its way to becoming a 3rd world country.....

HSBC has also offered me an investment account, and I plan on using that. Other investment banks were giving me 0.25 cents!?! per 50K in cash sweep, and that really sucked. If you are holding cash temporarily in between equity trades for example, I'd want a bit better interest rate. But again, it depends on how you want to manage your money. If you only want it to sit and accumulate interest, of course no CD or interest rate is currently going to give you spectacular returns in any bank. If you really know and want to trade equity markets, of course you want those instruments in Asia. US regulations are making it more and more difficult to make money. I also have the option to open an overseas account in Hong Kong which I think will be helpful if you are doing over seas business and want the ability to hold local currencies as you don't have to go overseas to open a new account, you can do this automatically if you are premier from another country.

On the other hand citibank also has a global network, I used to have an account with citibank but the only way they were going to give me a higher rate of interest was if i put it in one of their 5 yr CDs, which i was unwilling if I wanted liquidity for other types of investment. The wire transfer service is excellent with Citi of course since they handle the vast majority of wires. Again it depends on what you want and what you're trying to do with your money.

dlerner

Actually with both these products you can put the $100k in a brokerage account and invest it any way that you like.

neuro0

The easiest way is park your IRA in there. Those are the money (in my case Mutual fund) I can't/won't touch for the next 30 years anyway.

jmhayes

Wait, there are AAA munis left in the US?

mia

This WSJ article published March 10, 2011 reports that HSBC Holdings PLC will slow its push for new clients of HSBC Premier.... As of the end of 2010, Premier had netted 4.4 million new accounts. When the Premier marketing push was touted in early 2008 ... the goal was to expand until 2012 and capture a total of 6 million new accounts....The bank doesn't break out the cost-income ratio for the Premier service...[but] In 2010, in Europe and the U.K, the retail bank's cost-income ratio—a key measure of efficiency—was 67%, which is 10 to 20 percentage points higher than its U.K. peers ... The bank now wants to make its existing clients more profitable by pitching more of HBSC's wealth-management services to Premier customers,

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

yyzvoyageur

I read that WSJ article the other day. I anticipate they'll be pushing their mutual funds pretty hard. I assume they'll also kibosh this.

chuck2007

I have been a HSBC Premier customer for just under 2 years and overall have been quite satisfied. Here are the positives as I see them:

1. Got a Kindle for signing up and depositing $50K
2. Opened a brokerage account and was able to buy US corporate bonds at a lower price than I could at either Schwab or TD Ameritrade
3. I save transaction fees every month since I do regular transfers to a foreign bank account
4. While traveling abroad, I am able to use the HSBC Premier Credit card with no foreign exchange charges
5. I opened a business account recently and have been able to do international wire transfers for a fee of $15 (compared to $30-$50 at other banks)
6. The Rewards program is decent with a $400 ticket available for 24000 points (approx. 1.67 cents per dollar spent). Of course, you can get value of up to 2 cents per dollar spent with the Capital One Venture card - but I was OK with this.

Overall, I find it convenient to do business with a global bank that is present internationally in most (if not all) of the countries that I travel to and do business in.

Would love to get other opinions.
Chuck

yyzvoyageur

1. Convenience of opening accounts in other countries and transferring funds online is great.

2. The current rewards programme with my Canadian card is worthless. Because of that I never use the MasterCard. If they improved the rewards offering, it could become my primary card.

3. Agreed regarding the US MasterCard. I love that they do not charge fees on foreign currency transactions.

4. Rates for savings accounts, GICs, etc. are low, at least in Canada.

5. The Premier call centre seems to have been outsourced. I've had some trouble with some pretty clueless agents.

yyyccclll

any airport lounge access? like AA?

Supersonic Swinger

As others have pointed out, both are clever marketing methods to access cheap funding for the banks but also do provide benefits. With HSBC I get:
- fee free credit cards already in 3 countries (and they are happy to open similar ones in others for you)
- global transfers of funds
- discovering their lounges at airports and accessing them is a pleasant surprise.

I tried to give Citibank a chance in each of the 3 countries (including the US) and quite frankly they couldn't organise their way out of a paper bag. YMMV.