Opening a bank account: How should I bring the money?

My bank says that they won't do wire transfers without me coming in to a branch and initiating it in person, which seems crazy. So how should I bring some funds over with me to open an account at a bank in London? Some sort of certified check or something? I'll need to get this sorted tomorrow as I fly Wednesday!! Thanks!

I added my mom to my account in the US before moving.... do you have someone you trust you could add to help you on the US side of things?

Otherwise check out xe.com.  I haven't used them (yet) for a transfer but have heard they are fast and easy.  I think it can be done completely online.

I sent my money to myself through western union, I picked the money up at Sainsburys and then put it in my bank account in the UK. it only cost me $5 to send the money that way.

Just another thing I thought of to warn you about.  It's pretty hard to open a bank account in the UK as a foreigner (especially when you are on a Tier 2 and not married to a UKC).

When I arrived, I got caught in a vicious circle of "can't open a bank account without a lease.... can't get a lease without a bank account."  Luckily my company stepped in and signed all my "guarantees" with the letting agency so that they would proceed with the lease without my ability to set up a standing order for the rent.

As soon as I had my lease I was able to open a local bank account.  So I was in the UK for almost a full month before I was able to open an account.

From what I remember, you don't need much money to actually open the account.  Some people have trouble opening accounts, as KFdancer alluded to, but I had no issues whatsoever-- I had armed myself with a letter from my Uni, but didn't need it, as they were happy to accept just my US Passport (though this was >3 years ago). 

But like KFdancer suggests, it could take a while, so you'll need to have enough money to support yourself in the meantime.  I'm not sure who you bank with in the US right now, but you could check to see if they have any agreements with UK-based banks so you can take money out when/as needed (For example, Bank of America customers can take money out at Barclays cashpoints with no additional fees).

Now that I'm over here, I use TransferWise to send money back/forth directly into my US/UK accounts.  It's normally quite quick (2-3 days), and has best exchange rate combined with the lowest fees I've found so far. 

If you're interested, I can give you a free trial by referring you (so just PM me if interested).  At least this way, you wouldn't have to carry around a load of cash until after you've found a place to put it.

Your wife can't wire money to you? Your employer may be able to help you with opening a bank account.

Your wife can't wire money to you? Your employer may be able to help you with opening a bank account.

Thanks everyone. This is probably the answer. My wife and I have separate accounts but I can give her money to wire me for this exact reason. That should solve it. My bank is pretty half-arsed, doesn't have any int'l affiliations etc... My work will give me a letter if I need one and I have a lot of people to help with advice when I get there. So that should be ok. Thanks!!

We are caught in this quagmire right now.  My EU citizen partner technically should be able to walk into a bank and open an account with just a passport, but we have only gotten offers to open cash accounts (rather than current accounts) due to the fact that neither of us have a constant source of income (at the moment) and the good ole "we need an official piece of mail with your name on it".  Hopefully we will get that solved next week when the bf does his NI interview.

I've got money to wire - just need somewhere to wire it to!

When I set my bank account up here in the UK, I didn't need any sort of proof of address. I just had to show ID and I used my passport with my visa in it for that. I had to tell them the last three places I've lived (which were all in the US). I didn't have a job and I didn't have any money on me to put in the account. I went about a week with no balance. My bank in the US doesn't do international transfers anymore so I looked into Western Union, who I've used before. I did the transfer online sent the money to myself. I chose the 3 day service so it would cost less. After three days, I went to Sainsbury's and picked up the cash at the travel money center and put the cash in my new UK bank account. It was fairly simple.

My bank hand the same issue, you had to be in branch to do the wire transfers.

We tried to use a company called xoom as they came recommended and they offered a 2 hour transfer service into our UK bank account.  When we tried to set up an account with them they kept asking for document after document for verification, we would send the document they asked for and we would not receive any reply of notification,  after 24-48 hours of wondering what the status was we called to find out what was going on, only to be told they needed another document,  they whole process went in a vicious cycle for a week to 10 days, they finally confirmed they had everything and we would receive confirmation via e-mail that our account was setup,  we never got that e-mail. Needless to say they were clueless when it came to customer service and had lost our trust in there ability to handle our money safely and securely.  We moved on...

We ended up using PayPal for the transfers.  The wife has her Paypal account and I had mine as you need one in the US and in the UK. Once you get through the PayPal account validation and 'Money Laundering' bureaucracy the process is simple.  It can take a couple of days extra, especially if you have to call them to get things verified as they flag your account if they are not your 'normal' transactions.

Their conversion rates seem to be quite reasonable and the fees are comparable to other money transfer services. 

The added benefit is you are able to see online where the money is and you are not relying on a third party, when you send the money from the US Paypal account to the UK Paypal account you can immediately account for it on both sides. 

As long as you have pre-funded your US PayPal account and PayPal does not flag the transaction for verification you could have the money physically in your UK bank account within 2 hours as they are required to use the 'Faster Payment' banking service that requires the transfer from your UK PayPal account to your bank account within 2 hours.  We have seen the transfer take as little as 10 minutes from our US Paypal account to our UK bank account.  The bigger the amount of the transfer the more likely you are to encounter delays,  first couple of times we had larger amounts and they flagged the account for more verification which delayed the process a couple of days.

Hope this helps.

LL - which bank did you use?  I like your Western Union approach though -that is a great tip!

In the states, I am using United Heritage Credit Union and in UK I am using Barclays.