positive bank experience

Just thought I should post my positive bank experience to give other new arrivals hope.

As I'm sure everyone of you has heard about, there is a catch-22 with opening a bank account due to the lack of address in the UK. Here's what I did:

Before I left the US, I had my US bank (BoA) send a statement to a friends address in the UK. We are staying at this address temporarily. Once in London, we called Citibank - you have to actually get an appointment first if you want to open an account. We told them what kind of documentation we have and after a bit of questioning & balking, they gave us an appointment. We took the US bank statement with the UK address (I was told it has to be an original statement and not a e-statement print-out), passports and employment contract of my spouse to a Citybank branch. Even though I told them that the address on the US bank statement was only temporary, they said that it would do ! They only called my US bank and my husbands employer to confirm that we were legitimate.

The approval process takes up to 48 hours and so 2 days later they called us and said that we were approved ! Talk about a big sigh of relief !! Within 3 days of being in the UK we had account.

The type of account we were able to open will give us ATM cards, checks and we can use it for automatic payment withdrawals and automatic deposits. We do have to wait 6 months for credit cards since we don't have a credit history in the UK.

Hope this helps someone 

Thank you so much. This does help. We're moving in 15 days! Woo hoo!  But we're already a step ahead in taht we already have a London address. Now it's a matter of picking a bank; there seems to be a lot of competition. How did you pick the bank you did?

I know we all have different experiences, but as a rule, stay away from NW (had many unnecessary ups & downs with them and I am a Brit) but HSBC have upped their game in the last few years, simple things like seeing transactions take place immediately, getting appts in branch quickly etc.

The only thing I cannot stomach with HSBC is that they now outsource telephone services to India and that royally p*sses me off.

Polling friends and family, they come up with Barclays and HSBC and not NW and LLoyds out of the main 4 high street banks (but there are a lot of alternatives these days).

Hope that helps a little- probably doesnt, sorry

The only thing I cannot stomach with HSBC is that they now outsource telephone services to India and that royally p*sses me off.

Don't they all do that these days?

I found HSBC the easiest to open a new account with, too. They've been great. When I went to my local branch to set up the account, the woman I met with gave me her card with her direct line #. So I don't have to deal with India! Yaye!

Don't they all do that these days?

No, NW have a policy not too, not sure about the others though. Besides I am sure NW will change it in a heartbeat if it suits them

We have the direct line too, because husband works for a subsid of HSBC (nothing to do with the banking side though) it helps!

Thanks. I'm leaning towards HSBC. I have also been considering Barclays (because I already have a BOA account and they have an ATM partnership), Citibank (because its world's largest bank and US-owned, but website says you must be UK resident for 3 years!), and Alliance-Leicester (for its high interest yielding accounts, but I've read some negative reviews on Ciao.co.uk).

I was told by Barclays (sp?) and BOA (with whom I have an account in the US) that their affiliation will not help you in anyway ! Especially not when trying to open an account. I sat in their office and tried to argue this for an hour. The only thing it will do for you is not charge you a fee when you use the Barclays (sp?) ATM. That's it. BOA will charge you heavily for any wire transfers to any other bank wether or not it is affiliated with them.

This caused me to switch to Citibank US. Citibank UK and Citibank US are separate entities and having one of the two did not help me open the other (there were actually very disinterested concerning that), but the wire transfer fee between the Citibanks is minimal compared to that of BOA.

I still have a BOA account so that I can withdraw cash from the ATM for free.

If you have an address already, that will help you immensely ! You shouldn't have any problems.

Don't they all do that these days?

RBS don't! (that encompasses NW, as has already been mentioned...)

I found HSBC the easiest to open a new account with, too. They've been great. When I went to my local branch to set up the account, the woman I met with gave me her card with her direct line #. So I don't have to deal with India! Yaye!

I had a terrible time trying to opening an account with Barclays when I first arrived....even though my husband had banked with them for 20yrs! Once they gave me an appt after many silly excuses a month later and they finally saw my work details...they started to be ohh so accommodating...too late in my book..as it was very poor customer service!  Shame on them.

Back when I was whinging about it on this site (2 yrs ago), I remember hearing very good things about HSBC from others! They seem to be the way to go! I would go with them if I had it to do all over again.

Given my issues with Barclays in the beginning they get nothing from me but a current account, basically direct debit and their bill paying services, everything is free but we bank elsewhere for everything else on principle.

Jules

I just found out that my company does all their business with HSBC so they are going to write me a letter of introduction to give to the bank and that should take care of everything...I hope!

Great tip, 2cubes!

I sing the praises of HSBC, and it's nice they have branches in the US...though you'll still have to pay a fee to use your UK ATM card in a US machine (International fee), it just seems a lot less hassle to be linked.

I kept my US account, as well as having a UK account with HSBC . After having been here going on, what, almost 8 years, during that time my bank was bought by Wachovia. They've got branches in the US cities where I usually do the most visiting and they do send my statements to my UK address with no hassle. But the service did seem to degrade when the change was made...not as friendly, but heck, they're bigger than the old bank I used and don't care as much.

Anyway, for me and my situation this works:
- US bank that will send statements to the UK
- US credit card that will send statements to the UK
- UK bank (yeah HSBC!)
- UK credit card

NB: Oh wow, apstyle, I just noticed you're in Arlington. I was just in the DC area...still trying to recover from jetlag. Have a great move! Oh, and, out of curiosity, "AP Style"? I majored in journalism many moons ago, so have the book, and by sheer coincidence, was talking with someone from The Associated Press on the phone today. Any connection to your screen name?

Before I left the US, I had my US bank (BoA) send a statement to a friends address in the UK.

Do you mean you just had them send a general "bank statement" as in the ones they normally send out monthly, or did you have them actually send a statment saying that you're in good standing?  J/w thanks

It's the normal monthly bank statement.
Basically, they are looking for proof that you live at that address.

Oh, and, out of curiosity, "AP Style"? I majored in journalism many moons ago, so have the book, and by sheer coincidence, was talking with someone from The Associated Press on the phone today. Any connection to your screen name?

I was wondering the same thing, too! I used to work in journalism and the AP Stylebook was my BIBLE.

Luxie,

As Otterpop said, it's just the regular monthly paper statement. Instead of it having your US address on the top of the statement it should show your name with the UK address. If your US bank sends statements overseas then you should just request a simple address change. They'll know what to do. That really did the trick for me