Canadian High Interest Savings Bank Accounts

I agree with you, KC, and it's not a decision I agree with. However, I can state that the reason behind the move was to align themselves with the other Big Five banks, all of which charge a fee for passbook recordkeeping. The difference with them is they waive the passbook recordkeeping fee for children, senior citizens and bank staff accounts whereas with HSBC there are no exceptions to the fee. It is mandatory even for staff.

The primary reason behind the fee is because HSBC is upgrading its banking platform to a global technology platform that requires fewer local country changes and should save on I.T. costs as other countries don't use passbooks.

I think another reason for instituting the fee is to drain down the balances of inactive, possibly dormant, passbook savings accounts and eventually weeding them out of the system.

As for it costing more to mail statements, further savings are being obtained as people will be changed to composite (consolidated) monthly statements and/or e-statements. As well, going forward, mail will be stamped with a U.S. postage meter and carry a Buffalo, NY, return address where postage costs are cheaper.

To change to a statement account, you will need to open a High Rate Savings account which carries essentially the same service charges without a monthly fee. The downside is it will be a new account number.

Cheers,
Doug