I see that you live in Seattle and HSBC has a branch in Seattle according to a quick web search. You could open an account with them and then open an account in the UK. Our son opened an account in the USA with HSBC a few months before he moved back and they would have opened a UK account for him but he needed to go into a branch to sign documents and have his id verified by an HSBC agent. Unfortunately he lived in Houston and the best HSBC could offer was for him to turn up to their branch in LA to do the paperwork while he was visiting his sister, but they told him it would take 2 trips to the office, so he declined and waited until he got over here. Being an existing US customer helped, I think.