Problems getting UK bank account.

Since we're drifting off of the original topic a bit, I'm wondering if anyone can explain why UK banks are such pains in the a$$ about signing up new customers.  I've never heard of a US bank turning anyone away from basic banking services like checking accounts; more like they're desperate for you to give them your money.  In the UK it seems to be the exact opposite; they don't particularly care to have you as a customer unless you can meet some threshold of worthiness.  Anyone know why there's such a difference?

I don't know, but my mom and I were having the same discussion on the phone when I left Barclays yesterday. I wonder why this is?

It used to be much, much harder to get a bank account here; apparently in the 'bank manager' days, you had to be personally introduced to the bank and proven to be worthy. I think also in the US so many accounts charge you for even the most basic services these days, while most bank accounts here are free and often offer stuff like interest-free overdrafts to crazy amounts. I think there are also the most recent money laundering laws that have come in all over the world, and some banks just don't know how to deal with them.
That said, I never had the least trouble getting an account. Maybe it's because I'm in a small university town, but all the banks had a smooth setup for international students; I chose RBS and was put on a very basic account that had an ATM card and cheques but no debit card. Once I'd had money coming in for about a year, the bank called me up and offered me the full student account with giant interest-free overdraft, debit card and everything. I was also able to get a student credit card (albeit with tiny limit) after 6 months, and 6 months after that I asked for an increase and got my credit limit quadrupled. That might just have been the times, though, because 6 years later I asked for a limit increase and was told they're not increasing anybody's limit now!

Getting a provisional is a good idea I think.  Simple, not too expensive and voila! Instant UK-issued ID with your married name.  I got one when I was on fiancee visa (sent it off to change name after the wedding) and used it strictly for ID purposes for over 2 years before ever taking a driving lesson.

I haven't tried getting my own account but had no problems being added to his Nationwide current account.

I agree with the provisional license idea. It only costs £50 and takes a few weeks to arrive, then it's valid for 10 years. I also feel so much more comfortable carrying that around for I.D. rather than my passport.

I opened an account with Barclays over a year ago. It's tough to remember now, but I remember the woman who opened the account saying I could only open it because I'd been in the country for less than a year. Otherwise my passport in my maiden name, marriage certificate, and bills in my married name wouldn't have been sufficient. So the account was opened fine, but the problem came when we had to change our address. The bank wouldn't accept those same three forms of ID because the time period had passed, which is actually why I got a provisional license in the first place. I needed some form of ID in my married name in order for the bank to update my address, and I thought a license would be less expensive and more useful than changing the name on my passport.

In the UK it seems to be the exact opposite; they don't particularly care to have you as a customer unless you can meet some threshold of worthiness.  Anyone know why there's such a difference?  

I think there are several things going on there.  Sign of the times could be one, like what DrSuperL99 said.  Branch staff aren't always as knowledgeable & well trained as they could be.  Also what banks advertise (what they say) and what they do are often completely different things - unfortunately.  If you review this link (what banks have published about themselves - British Bankers Association):

http://www.moneymadeclear.org.uk/pdfs/bank_accounts.pdf

You can see that for basic bank accounts, as long as the customer has provided sufficient proof of identity - really the only reason they should be turning you down for a basic account are one of the disqualifying factors listed - usually undischarged bankrupt, or record of fraud, which don't apply to most people.

Therefore if the bank is saying you can't have a basic account, a customer should ask why & be given the reason.  Be polite but persistent.  (Heck - take that leaflet with you!)  If the reason doesn't seem legitimate, then ask someone higher up until you are satisfied (or more likely, until you get the basic bank account).  Wave the leaflet around, point out what they have published about their own policies...  

The thing is that banks don't make money off a basic bank account customer.  Therefore, the bank assumes you want a higher level account - with overdraft, with cheque writing (which is going away, btw...note cheque writing is considered an extension of a credit facility here), etc - because (bonus for the bank!) they can charge you fees on these (often a monthly maintenance fee at the very least, when you're not even owing them money - rather you are paying them for the privilege of their keeping your money for you).  When you go into a bank & say you want an account, they assume this is what they are going to set up for you - credit checks are run, so on & so forth, and this is the hurdle at which new folks often fail - not because you have bad credit, but because you have no credit, here.  And then maybe the bank staff doesn't want to spend anymore time on you to get you into the basic account = little to no profit for the bank.  (wonders if staff targets play into this somehow? commissions - etc?)

However, if you know the name of the bank's basic account product (Barclays Cash Card, Cooperative Cashminder, Halifax Easycash, Lloyds Cash Account, etc etc etc) - go in & be assertive and make it very clear that is what you want...well the bank has less leeway to get the facts confused....    (although it could still happen in application process matters, proof of identity, etc)

The thing is that banks don't make money off a basic bank account customer.  Therefore, the bank assumes you want a higher level account - with overdraft, with cheque writing (which is going away, btw), etc - because (bonus for the bank!) they can charge you fees on these (often a monthly maintenance fee at the very least, when you're not even owing them money - rather you are paying them for the privilege of their keeping your money for you). 

Thanks, Mrs. R!  This all makes sense, but it seems fairly short-sighted and stupid, too.  (Not having a go at you; having a go at the system. )  Let's say I go in wanting a basic account.  The bank isn't going to make any money off of me, but if they wait 6 or 12 months to see if I'm a responsible customer, they will probably be able to offer me an upgrade to a higher level account and start getting some fees out of me.

Alternatively, if I'm a dirtbag who constantly goes overdrawn and writes bad checks, they could drop me.  I'd guess the percentage of responsible people vs dirtbags would wind up making the bank money in the long run.

I knew you weren't having a go at me.  And I'm all for criticising the banks what they are due.  

I don't think the banks have proven themselves to be particularly far sighted and intelligent anyway though.  

I do wonder how staff targets (staff bonuses or commissions) might play a role in that - clearly another policy that is set internally by the banks.  Maybe the staff aren't encouraged or rewarded for opening basic accounts?

The reason I suggested building societies (if they have a current account on offer) & credit unions is that these organisations are less corporate & perhaps less focused on profit - being owned by their members, rather than shareholders.

Alternatively, if I'm a dirtbag who constantly goes overdrawn...

Hint, the bank ***loves*** for you to go overdrawn!  That's a brilliant result for them.  

I had a particularly jerky employee at NatWest when trying to get onto my husband's account.  It seemed that no amount of anything would satisfy this guy and he was pretty rude about it, too.  Eventually, after about 4 visits, we got it sorted out, but now I avoid him like the plague.  But any time I am in the bank and happen to end up with him, he tries to upsell me to every possible product on the planet.  Sorry, buddy.  You didn't have the time of day for me?  I don't have the time of day for you.  Take your pitch up with my husband when you see him, which is to say, never.
 

I have heard, anecdotally, that getting an account in the US isn't as easy as it once was -- what with post 9/11 identification requirements, but since I haven't "started fresh" since I was a teen (20+ years ago), it's not been a personal issue.  But when my husband was in grad school a few years back, lots of international student friends ran into problems not entirely dissimilar from the ones we experience here in the UK.

I went to Barclays today to open a bank account and had the same problem as OP. My passport/ visa is under my maiden name but all of my bills here have my married name on. They told me I couldn't open a bank account with them unless I have some ID with my married name that matches the bills or viceversa. Will be going to another branch or another bank on Monday.

FWIW, the most recently published FSA data (for the period of January-June 2010) showed that Lloyds had the highest number of customer complaints, followed by Barclays in second place, and then Santander in third.

Sorry, but in my experience there is a very big difference in the quality of service at different banks.

I've worked at analysing customer complaints (quantitatively and qualitatively) for a UK financial services company. (Not a bank.)

These statistics depend upon whether or not the customer decides to register an official complaint. Speaking to an employee at the bank and saying that you are unhappy about something does not count as a complaint. Your problem only counts as a complaint  if you contact the company's "Complaint Department" and say that you want to register an official complaint.

Something to think about if, as a customer, you have a problem with any company in the UK.

Many people can't be bothered to make an official complaint, especially if the problem with the bank (like suddenly being denied access to your money for no good reason - which happened to DH frequently with Santander) causes them to have other issues, like not being able to pay their bills and having to deal with all the people they owe money to.

The same goes for making complaints to the Financial Ombudsman. Who has the time, especially when you are stressing about other things?

Also, the amount of complaints does not tell you about the type or severity of complaint. The example above of DH having his debit card constantly blocked or cancelled by Santander (usually because he bought some £5 item from someone in a foreign country off Ebay), or my online access being cut  off for over a month because they screwed up their internet banking system(not good when you move money back and forth between different countries frequently) . -It took me several days to even realise that my access had been cut off because the error mesage just said that they were having technical difficuties, not that there was anything wrong with my account, are more serious than some other things that banks canget wrong.

Those are just two of the many, many problems we have had with Santander.

I have never encountered anything like this with Lloyds or HSBC.

This includes dealings over the internet and on the phone, not just in branch.

Companies have an overall corporate culture which affects employees' attitudes toward customers and how they think customers are supposed to be treated.

My husband has banked with Barclay's his whole life and has had no issues with them. They've been very accommodating with our overdraft and even extended it when we ran into financial hardship right after our daughter was born and added a line of credit recently as well.

This past week when we booked 3 hotels, 3 plane tickets, 3 coach tickets and a pizza all in 45 minutes their Fraud Prevention phoned us up within 5 minutes of the plane ticket transaction &d asked DH if he was the one making all the purchases, they thanked him and apologized for bothering him. Looking back we probably should have notified them that we would be making a few large purchases that day but we were appreciative that they contacted us rather than just shutting down his card.

We were a bit upset recently with them that it took so long for the Cashiers Cheque from our Building Society to clear but that's just standard and in my head I've switched the blame to DH for not taking care of moving the money earlier...so they're really not responsible for that either.

All in all we've been very happy with Barclays.

Sorry, but in my experience there is a very big difference in the quality of service at different banks.

There's no need to be sorry about anything - you've brought up good points, personal experiences, valid opinions, and I agree that the complaint data is just one thing to consider among other things.  Another useful thing to consider might be customer satisfaction surveys.  The most recent Which? survey in terms of good service had First Direct (part of HSBC), Smile (part of Co-Op), The One Account (part of RBS), and Co-Operative on top for customer satisfaction ratings.  Santander came out dead last on that survey, last in a MoneySavingExpert survey, and also had a very high number of complaints on the FSA info I cited earlier.

We bank with Barclays - there are things we have been happy with, and some things we have been unhappy with.  DH has banked with them his entire life.  We have thought seriously about switching to Co-Operative, but we haven't done so yet.  

I do find UK banks a bit same-y though, although clearly some are better and some are worse.  They're all there to make money off us anyway & I don't entertain any feelings of tender loyalty in particular.  

It took over 6 months to add me to my husband's Lloyds account.  First, I went in with my passport and marriage certificate but that wasn't sufficient because it didn't have my current address on it.  Next, I went in with passport, marriage cert, and the letter I had received at my current address from UK immigration (didn't have my FLR card yet) but that wasn't acceptable because it didn't have my date of birth on it.  No, they couldn't accept the letter + passport, the address and date of birth had to be on the SAME piece of ID.  Then went in with passport, letter, marriage certificate, FLR card and anything else I could find.  By this time we had worked our way through the ranks and were seated in an office.  The employee was nice enough but crashed her computer while trying to make the changes.  Not a problem, she'd take care of it and we'd be fine.  Except that months later we were not fine, I was still not on the account.  Well...  DH wouldn't have been so angry about it if he hadn't kept getting those annoying calls from Lloyds asking him to come in and talk to so-and-so about how they could meet our banking/insurance/credit card/etc needs.  So he told them YES, I would LOVE to come in and talk to the branch manager about our needs.  And we did.  The gentleman we spoke to was also not happy about the rigamarole we were going through for such a simple request and he promised to fix it.  Silly man.  Two months later I was still not on the account.  So DH wrote one of his best angry customer letters and got a satisfactory reply - an apology and 75gbp deposited to our account.  And most important, I was finally added to the account.  Good grief!

After being rejected at the Co-operative Bank and Barclays a couple of days ago. I went to RBS today and had no problem opening an account with my documents. My passport is under my maiden name and bills are under my married name. I took my marriage certificate and they were fine with that. So I guess it all depends on the bank and/ or the branch or I was lucky.

Off topic question:

If writing cheques is considered an extension of credit, how are bills paid from an account? Sorry if this seems a stupid question, but since all my banking experience is from the US I really don't understand this. I usually have to write a few checks every months to pay a few bills (i.e. water bill, life insurance policy, medical bills, etc) so how are bills paid in the UK?

I take a different approach to paying bills than maybe what some peeps do. Any bill that is variable every month (water, electric, gas, cable), I do not ever set up on a direct debit because I want to check out the bills first before paying them. I can't tell you the number of times I've caught billing errors, so unless its the same amount every month (i.e. car payment) I've never felt comfy letting a company direct debit me. Is that going to cause a problem in the UK? (FWIW, I feel that way because US banking laws allow too much freedom for companies to reach into your account and take money waaayyy too easily.)

Back on topic:

If I'm 'fresh off the boat' with my ILE visa, am I going to have probs getting added to my husbands' account? Keep in mind we don't have an account yet, and since he'll be living with his folks initially (before I come over), he won't actually have any bills in his name. Are we going to be stuck in a nasty catch-22 with even getting an account open? Assuming he gets past the hurdle of getting an account open, will I have to come over and get some bill put in my name for proof of address before I can be added to his account?