HSBC...Help?

I have a personal account back home (not HSBC) in the states and I just opened a HSBC International Student account.  Can I write myself a check from my US account and deposit it in my HSBC account?  And how long will it take to clear?  Has anyone tried this?

I have HSBC accounts in the UK and US.  There is no charge and no limit on depositing foreign cheques drawn on one HSBC account and deposited in the other.  It may take as long as two weeks for such cheques to clear.

I believe that there are significant charges for depositing other foreign cheques, such as third party cheques.  That may include checks drawn on non-HSBC accounts that you own.  It might be best to set up a US HSBC account.

I actually had a lot of trouble getting HSBC to put money from cheques that were made out in dollars and were from another bank.  I also had an international student account.  Because of my bad experience, you may want to take what I say with a grain of salt.  In most cases, them processing your American cheque will just take a while, depending on the amount, because of Britains money laundering laws (not sure of the technical term).  Best idea that my American friends at University in the UK found was to get the money into the account by direct transfer.  Is a parent or anyone else in the states on the account?  If not, I think you can also call them, and give them the bank branch you openned the HSBC account with, the sort code, and the bank account number, and as long as it is a larger bank in the states, they should have no problems doing this.  I hope this is helpful to you!  I think either way, you should be fine!  One way may just take a bit longer!   

Also you can get a lot of under informed people when showing them an American cheque, like it is some sort of strange device...  Since it is your account and coming from your account, they can do it (and are supposed to do it).  It will some times takes weeks for the funds to be available once deposited.  You usually have better luck at the branch your account is at.

I don't know if you have a valid debit card from your US account, but you might be better off just withdrawing the cash on the card and then if you want to/need to deposit it in the UK account.  You usually get a very good exchange rate on those type of withdrawls, and at least my US bank doesn't charge me too much for foreign withdrawls on top of the exchange rate.

You can also "wire" money from the one account to another if you need to move a larger sum of money.  This usually costs money, like $50-$60 but usually only takes a couple of days at most.

Then of course there is XEtrade which is discussed on this board quite a lot.

Hi,

I agree with kitson. I have done the American money in to GBP thing, and the reverse, and their conversion rate is evil. I recently got great deal less on a coversion than I should of, and we are taking it up with the bank now.

I would deposit the check in the US, go into the British bank, withdraw the money with your American debit card, and then hand it over in GBP for the deposit. The only problem is if there is a foreign withdraw limit.