Singapore Expats

Hi, I'm thinking of opening a SCB account for transferring some money overseas. Anyone had any good or bad experience with SCB?

How is their service and are their credit cards good?

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Thanks for your help.
Just wondering. do they keep bombarding you with advertisements or ask you to buy their other products?

This is obvious will all major banks.. They will send you offer and product promotions through email and often called you, to subscribe for their products immediately.

Chino wrote:Thanks for your help.
Just wondering. do they keep bombarding you with advertisements or ask you to buy their other products?

They send me something every month in my statement; occasionally I will receive additional mail pieces. I get an email maybe twice a year. I have been called once to introduce my 'personal relationship manager' who has now disappeared once again into the fog.

Go with stanchart! They will be the new Liverpool sponsors!

Anyway have credit cards with them, their promotions are among the worst though they sometimes give freebies like laptops and tvs just for charging your card!

As someone who has had an account with Standard Chartered in Singapore for almost 20 year, I can only recommend staying well clear of them.

Their customer service has completely fallen apart in the past year or so.

I asked to have an FD closed & they told me it would take 7 days. Then they said 7 working days then back to 7 days. Now, over 2 weeks later, the FD has been closed for 3 days but the funds are completely missing! They were not transferred to my Cheque & Save account and are nowhere to be seen.

I have been ringing SC since last Friday & am unable to get a simple answer to a simple question - when can I access my own funds?
Internally their staff are not allowed to phone each other & have to rely on emails. Solution to no answer to their email is to send another email. Even escalating to management results in a half-hearted apology but no actual results. So, here I am at the beginning of the month with no funds to pay my bills!

They quite often do not answer emails from customers and even if they do it will take a minimum of 2 days. As I don't live in Singapore, the 15 minute or more hold times result in significant costs & time wastages.

SCS also has very limited ATM machine coverage & this 5Net(?) system doesn't seem to always work - the ATMs at the airport don't appear to always participate.

I opened a Singapore account because 20 years ago the Malaysian bank customer service was terrible. Things have changed - Malaysian banks are much better & SCS has almost hit rock bottom. When my FD is finally located and returned I am closing all accounts with this bank. I opened up a DBS account last trip to Singapore. They also don't appear to have such good customer service, but most things can be done online & they have a lot more ATM machines.

...and no, I'm not a Malaysian picking on Singapore!
Just disappointed that my faith in Singapore's world class standards has been dampened by SCS over the last year.

DPBaker wrote: I opened a Singapore account because 20 years ago the Malaysian bank customer service was terrible. Things have changed - Malaysian banks are much better & SCS has almost hit rock bottom. When my FD is finally located and returned I am closing all accounts with this bank. I opened up a DBS account last trip to Singapore. They also don't appear to have such good customer service, but most things can be done online & they have a lot more ATM machines.

...and no, I'm not a Malaysian picking on Singapore!
Just disappointed that my faith in Singapore's world class standards has been dampened by SCS over the last year.

All through the forum you'll find references to how bad service is in ALL banks within Singapore. It is a Singapore issue and not a brand of the bank because i get good service with my bank overseas but utterly useless here.

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ScoobyDoes wrote:
All through the forum you'll find references to how bad service is in ALL banks within Singapore. It is a Singapore issue and not a brand of the bank because i get good service with my bank overseas but utterly useless here.

Sorry for offtopic but wtf. Coming from northern Europe I have been amazed by the service. For me it is even not so appealing since I'm used to self service on everything. Local branch just across the road, second branch 500m away. I'm used to have only 1-2 branches per city and also those are limited (cannot withdraw money - only from ATM, just the usual selling drones). Just that you have to appreciate what you have here... I have been in Singapore for 2 months now and been overwhelmed by the attention my bank gives me. The only grieve I have is it took over 2 weeks to get my visa card... Also the fees are out of this world for me... practically free.

Of course if banking in my home country is worse it is no excuse for bad service here... Just still adjusting myself for local standards, sorry!...

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justme