HSBC now accept Amex

[Paddington Bear]

Hi there,

Apologies if this has already been raised. I couldn't find it if it has.

We use Actinic Payments, with HSBC as our bank. HSBC never accepted Amex, so we had to add Amex as a seperate Merchant. All handled perfectly well by the Actinic people.

Now, HSBC recently notified us that it will from now on accept Amex.

My question is: Do I have to do anything?

[Duncan Rounding]

You may still need an AMEX agreement with HSBC. Best to check directly with them.

[guccij]

Our letter from HSBC said we didn't have to do anything. So we haven't

But then, we didn't have a separate Amex agreement with them, only with AP.

[Paddington Bear]

I have news - useful if you have an Amex merchant account and bank at HSBC.

I just received a new Amex merchant account number (unasked for) from HSBC.

This is because they now accept Amex transactions.

However, I already have one independently.

So I phoned Amex to ask them which one has the better rate, as I presumed HSBC would probably show some customer loyalty and do us a favour.

Of course I was wrong.

My existing one costs 1.5% per transaction.
The one HSBC have very kindly created for me costs 2.6% per transaction.

I explained that I didn't need it and the new account is being terminated.

[guccij]

Thanks for this - we have very few Amex tx but will bin the "agreement" when it arrives.