Two Factor Authentication on a US bank Account

If you want to log into your US bank account from the UK and they ask for two factor authentication they require a US phone number. If you are in the UK you probably won't have one of those so what do you do? Email? or one of those USB stick devices although that won't work for a mobile app...can you even load a US bank mobile app onto a UK phone?

If you want to log into your US bank account from the UK and they ask for two factor authentication they require a US phone number. If you are in the UK you probably won't have one of those so what do you do? Email? or one of those USB stick devices although that won't work for a mobile app...can you even load a US bank mobile app onto a UK phone?

My US banks (HSBC and Wise) have an authentication via their mobile apps. Vanguard accepts UK numbers to send a text verification to, although before they did I used a US Skype number and a robotic voice would speak the numbers to me.  SS uses verification through a code sent to email.

The Vanguard mobile app is only available on the US App Store so I switch to the Apple Store when I wish to load or update it. (I have an iPhone).

It's very wise to be thinking this way in preparation for your move.

If I were doing it again, I'd open free to maintain current accounts with several US banks before I left, as insurance. I was only a Wells Fargo banking customer and after several years of being able to easily bank from the UK, (2FA by email) they decided that they didn't want to support overseas customers any more, so closed all checking, savings and credit card accounts.

It was difficult coming up with an alternative from the UK. Many banks said they were happy to service overseas customers but would not open the account unless I was in the US at the time.

It's very wise to be thinking this way in preparation for your move.

If I were doing it again, I'd open free to maintain current accounts with several US banks before I left, as insurance. I was only a Wells Fargo banking customer and after several years of being able to easily bank from the UK, (2FA by email) they decided that they didn't want to support overseas customers any more, so closed all checking, savings and credit card accounts.

It was difficult coming up with an alternative from the UK. Many banks said they were happy to service overseas customers but would not open the account unless I was in the US at the time.

Good plan. Our US bank also started moving overseas accounts to another bank that only had texts for 2FA. A Wise US account works well and I opened one and added it to my Vanguard account as a 2nd bank in case that happens again.

Our daughter uses Chase which works fine from the UK and also opened a Wise GBP account with UK debit card to easily pay bills etc while she moved. Once here she sat on our couch one evening and opened a Chase.co.uk account which took about 30 minutes. No proof of UK residence needed. She then told me her sort code and account number and I sent her a fiver using bank transfer to test it. SO much easier to open an account from just a few years ago.

I got round any potential issues on a two month recent visit to the UK by simply buying an international plan with my US phone service. It was basically $100  per month to use my unlimited US data and phone service in the UK, but that would obviously get expensive. I'll probably do that for the first few months I'm in the UK until things are set up.

Things like ID.me look convenient, but the phone app requires an annual fee and for you to share your "soul" ie data with yet another internet organization. Some banks will allow an email for 2FA and with Gmail that's easy, but really 2FA and all the different accounts we have now make things complicated if you are in the US and even more challenging if you are overseas.

id.me is free for me, it was set up as part of me setting up an IRS account and I only use it for the IRS The IRS account also has the option of texting to a US phone but I prefer the security of an authentication app to a text message for things as important as my IRS account.