The arduous experience of crossing through Hong Kong twice to open an online account!

First, the results: HSBC and Bank of China pending approval, ZhongAn approved instantly!
Timeline:
📌12-20 Saturday: Saw on social media that HSBC would charge management fees for new accounts after January 1, 2026, so decided to open an account before New Year's Day. But since it was the weekend and there might be more people, I decided to go to Hong Kong on a weekday.
📌12-21 Sunday: Stayed at home reading many account opening guides. I have to say, many of the posts I found were from half a year ago or even last year. I recommend sorting search results by the most recent to see the latest information.
📌12-22 Monday: Crossed at Shenzhen Bay Port at 10:00 AM. Followed the guide to take B3X, costing 16.5 HKD to Tuen Mun Town Centre. There’s a Tuen Mun Square Phase II, with McDonald's downstairs and HSBC upstairs, both with free Wi-Fi. However, the exit record from the Immigration Department’s 12367 system hadn’t appeared yet, so I couldn’t apply. I waited until 3:30 PM, but it still hadn’t appeared, so I returned to Shenzhen. Just after 4:20 PM, I re-entered Hong Kong, and the exit record was finally available.
Many people were waiting for their exit/entry records that day, some had entered Hong Kong the day before. Rumor has it that the Immigration system was having issues. Records for arrivals on the 21st were only available after 1 PM on the 22nd, and those arriving before 9 AM on the 22nd only got records after 3 PM. Many people were online waiting for their records.
📌12-22 Tuesday: Crossed again at Shenzhen Bay Port, but this time to Tin Shui Wai. Took B2P, costing 11.3 HKD to the Kingswood Villas Scenic Lake Residence station, where there’s a Sogo mall on the second floor with HSBC, and McDonald's nearby in Phase II.
Applied for an account at HSBC using Wi-Fi, but it went into manual approval, see P2. The people at Tuen Mun HSBC the day before all got approved instantly, sigh 😮‍💨. HSBC staff said once it entered approval, I could only wait; there’s no way to check the progress. I tried applying again, and after facial recognition, I received a prompt in P3.
Then I connected to Wi-Fi at McDonald's to apply for Bank of China. But it also went into manual approval, see P4. I was a bit overwhelmed at that point [shock]! Very frustrating.
Finally, I applied for ZhongAn, and luckily, it was approved instantly (P5). Otherwise, I would have been completely broken mentally.
In the end, I suggest to friends planning to open accounts: try to confirm whether there’s a significant delay in the exit/entry records on the same day, to avoid making a wasted trip. $BNB