HSBC UK account from US

Hello all!

I found some old threads (circa 2006 or so) on opening an HSBC UK account from the US, but I couldn't find anything recent. Does anyone have experience with this from the last few years? Was it fairly simple or a long, painful process? What's your opinion on the bank itself?

Just a little background: My husband and I will be moving to Edinburgh in July for grad school, and I'd like to go ahead and get some of our savings converted to pounds. Hubby did some research and found that March historically has the best conversion rates, so the sooner the better. But even not taking that fact into consideration, it would just be a lot easier to have an account already open and ready to go when we get there.

If anyone has conversion advice, I'd love to hear that as well.

Thanks!

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We have HSBC accounts in both countries.  We had UK accounts first, but were able to open US accounts in advance of our moving to the states back in 2010, so everything was all set up when we got here.  I would just go into a branch, if you have one local, and ask what services they are offer.  They have always been incredibly helpful on both sides of the pond for anything we needed.

I'm going to come down on the other side as I dislike HSBC. We have accounts in South East Asia, UK and USA and we have been plagued with problems! We had huge trouble in opening the "foreign" accounts from the USA, and it took 1 month for them to get us set up in the UK!

So, if you get great service all well and good, perhaps we were just unlucky?

Well, I just talked with someone in their International Banking Center. Apparently we would have to go into a branch to submit the paperwork for the UK account, and there is a fee of $200. That's all well and good, except that I live in UT and the closest branch is in CA. My husband will be taking a brief trip to CA in the next couple of months, but the rep informed me that if anything goes wrong with the paperwork, we might have to go back to the branch in person. I'm not going to spend the money to go all the way back out there for that, but I'd hate to spend $200 for nothing.

Do y'all think the risk is worth it to possibly avoid the hassle of opening an account when we get to the UK? It will likely be a couple of weeks before we have proof of residence as we will be flat hunting when we arrive, so I know that is probably going to make things difficult.

I wouldn't spend $200.  Yeah, it will take a bit of time to open an account here but we have all managed too.  Even though it was frustrating when I moved, I would do it all again for $200!

I def wouldn't spend $200 to open an account.  That sounds like a load of crap to me.  Maybe I am lucky getting service from them! 

What about Bank Santander?  All the branches in this part of the world (Boston) have switched over.  I wonder if they would be any good at opening a UK account. 

Also worth noting that HSBC is not widespread in Scotland. There are a couple of branches in Edinburgh, but you'll struggle to find them elsewhere. As you'll be going to university, you'll almost certainly get help setting up accounts. At my uni they even had bank reps at orientation to sign people up more easily.

Hi,

Currently the US/UK exchange rates are VERY favourable for the UK and less so for the US. There can be 'some' value in looking at historic trends but currently, it's the opposite of what you've found!

To maximise the amount of UK Sterling/Pounds you can get for your savings, I'd suggest looking at a Currency Exchange specialist as they can get better rates than the high street banks and mainstream 'holiday' type exchange services. In order to be more effective, the larger the sum you are exchanging with a currency specialist the better and as you've mentioned savings, I'd assume this would be of an amount worthy of speaking to such a specialist.

As for getting a personal account setup here prior to arrival, you'll need to look at HSBC and other banks in Scotland to see if you can proceed with that as best you can given some of the info above etc.

Good luck!

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

We had a HSBC UK account set up for us before we moved and we are glad that we did it. There was a fee as you said of 200 and we knew that there was an HSBC branch in the city where we would be working.

I felt better about having the account set up in advance, and about having my debit card and checks sent to me securely to my US home address in advance of my move.

My husband was able to set up his direct deposit from his employer directly to this UK account and we were able to access funds as soon as that was available.

My experience with banking in the UK (and I worked some years in a bank when I was in college years ago), is that most banking is automated, so the bricks and mortar bank is not essential to the process. After we arrive we asked about information to open a savings account and were directed to the online banking system.

The HSBC should be able to handle your request online for a new UK account, but we had to first open a US HSBC account (which we then closed so that we could minimize/reduce our paperwork).

For us, I thought it was worth it to pay the cost to set up the account to receive direct deposit before we arrived, but your situation may be different.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We are still debating, but as of right now, it looks like we probably won't open the account.

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