HSBC

I have been a customer of HSBC bank for a long, long time. I originally started my account before starting University (in the days forgotten when they offered either a free railcard or a £50 cash bonus when you opened a Student account) in Newport Pagnell. My local branch was small, personal and welcoming in the little town that I grew up in; nothing like the megabank monstrosity that is on New Street.
This bank had a refurb a couple of years ago to make it more «modern», but in reality they took away a good 90% of counter services and replaced it with automated ATM’s and paying in machines (to minimise staffing) and add a new «business banking» section (as business customers must make them much more moolah than personal ones).
This all sounds very negative, but it’s a bank… It’s all about money. I popped in for the first time in ages last week to pay some physical cash into my account. As I had coins, I couldn’t go down the machine route and had to use counter services instead. First things first, I was greeted and aided by a member of staff (as I probably looked a little bewildered) and even though it was lunchtime, it wasn’t jam packed.
I duly filled in my paying in form at one of the many counters (with working pens, I might add) and mooched on over to counter services. Again, it was lunchtime, so there was a queue. That being said, I was at the counter within about 10 minutes; so no complaints there!
The young lady who served me was helpful, polite and very pleasant to deal with. I had counted out the various denominations of coins and notes and she duly recounted (not being annoyed that I had made an error on my paying in form) and efficiently dealt with my enquiry.
I was in and out in around 20 minutes. This was at about 1pm in the afternoon, so hat’s off to the staff who kept things moving swiftly whilst still being helpful and offering service with a smile. I’m not going to tell you to use this bank necessarily (I’m sure other banks offer much better personal accounts), but if you do have cause to enter this huge temple to capitalism on New Street; it’s A OK with me.

Cant stand this HSBC branch — its always so busy you cant work out where to go, and there are hoards of people all surrounding the staff.
However there are plenty of cash machines but it does lack paying in machines.
If I walked in here planning to open an account I would walk right back out of the door.