The World's Local Bank (which world do they live in?)

I went to HSBC in Taipei today to open an account. I had met a girl at swing here a while ago, who worked for HSBC. She said that I could open an account here and use it abroad. It seemed like a pretty good thing, because when I was in Britain last, I banked with the Royal Bank of Scotland and they fucked it up royally. By far the worst banking service I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing, hands down. Since College wrote to me yesterday asking me for bank details so they can pay in my stipend, and I know there is an HSBC in Oxford, I thought I'd just go and open an account in Taipei, and then it'll be ready for when I make the move in August.

Not so simple.

In numerous airports I have seen advertisements saying "HSBC - the world's local bank." I get to the Taipei 建國 branch and they were very, very polite. The lady informs me that there's two accounts, one is entirely on-line banking, in US and TW dollars only, and the other one is a "premier" account (or some such thing - her English was quite accented). She said the premier account can indeed be accessed world wide but had a minimum deposit of NT$ 3,000,000. I think that was meant to discourage me from proceeding further, but just for the hell of it, I asked her to let me speak to a representative anyway. She took me into the inner sanctum, containing plush red sofas, a big flat-screen television (CNN), cups of tea/coffee (though no one offered me any), a tray of candies, a lot of cubicles/offices with varnished wood doors and semi transparent glass walls, and customers coming in to access their vaults. Then a nice man came to inform me of the same thing that the lady had just told me - which, put into simple terms, means that HSBC is the world's local bank if you live in a world where people have NT$ 3,000,000 to throw around (that's 50,000 pds, or USD$100,000).

I read somewhere once that 40% of the world's wealth is owned by 1% of the population. I don't know exactly how many people in the world can afford to have an HSBC "premier" account, put NT$ 3,000,000 in it just to keep it open, and to enjoy the privilege of accessing it elsewhere - but I'm sure that it's really quite a small percentage of the world's population. So perhaps the claim of HSBC being "the world's local bank" is a bit of an exaggeration. It certainly isn't the same world I live in. Thinking back - that girl at swing who said I could open an account with HSBC - she must have thought I was extremely well off. Hmm.

Then I read this entry in someone's blog, about HSBC, and started having second thoughts on whether I want to bank with them at all. Anyone got suggestions of reliable, efficient, and competent UK banks?