Citibank UK - accounts

A friend of mine who works in a bank in london told me that about an account that Citibank has that allows you to keep some of your money in dollars & some in Pounds without loosing out to the currency rate difference.  Does this make any sense to anyone ? Has anyone heard of this ? We are going to move to the UK this summer and I am trying to brace myself against the "trying to open a bank account" nightmare.

I have looked through some of the previous discussions concerning bank accounts but they were all from 2 years ago or so.  Does anyone have any recent experiences trying to open up a bank account in the UK without having any UK credit history or property ?

If you do a search you'll see that many of us did this.  I opened up a current account (checking) with Citibank.  I needed a reference letter from my US bank, a reference letter from my employer, and passport.  It took a while but they did open one up.  I do not have a US dollar account but you can open one up...you have to have a certain amount being paid into your accounts per month (may be about £2000) to do it (or at least to have no fees).

Interesting question. I'm contemplating whether to open an account with Bank of America, which has an exclusive partnership with Barkley's Bank of London, or Citibank. Can somebody tell me the pros and cons of each deal?  Thanks.

Interesting question. I'm contemplating whether to open an account with Bank of America, which has an exclusive partnership with Barkley's Bank of London, or Citibank. Can somebody tell me the pros and cons of each deal? Thanks.

It's "Barclays," by the way.

I'm moving this into the money section so it can get more responses.