Opening a new bank account in the UK

Hi all,

My wife currently banks with Citibank in the US.  We are trying to open a new bank account for her in the UK but have no idea how to go about this.

Is anyone able to offer some advise or where to start?  I think Citibank have branches in London, so would she be able to apply online for an account there?

Help!

After reading all the problems US citizens are having getting bank accounts opened here in the UK, I was very surprised that the closest Barclay's Bank (where my fiance has an account) opened an account for me with no fuss at all.  Evidently this isn't always the case, but the first thing I would do is ask - either by phone, email, or walking into the branch closest to you where she'd like to bank.

They only required my passport (with my fiance visa inside), and an item of mail to me at our address here (we used a council tax bill).  The appointment to set it up wasn't super short, but my fiance said it wasn't all that different from when he opened his account with them.

Firstly, thank you for responding and writing about your experience.

I see.  Sounds good.  I currently bank with Barclay's myself so I might just pop into the branch tomorrow to put the question to them.

Have you had any experience with transferring money from a US account to a UK account?  I would assume that the biggest hassle there is getting the UK bank account in the first instance.

You're very welcome!  Yes, I've been working on the issue of transferring $'s to £'s and so far the best option (in terms of getting the most for my money) is taking money out of a cash machine and depositing it into my bank account - not particularly practical in the long term.   

I have also used PayPal once so far for a fairly small transfer of $500.00.  It works, but I need to figure out a few things to make it easier.  You have to have two PP accounts, one US linked to a US bank, and the other UK linked to a UK account (I discovered you also need a second email account, since each PP account has to have a separate email address - probably not an issue for most people nowadays, but I'm a bit behind the times).  The exchange rate didn't seem too bad, but since it's a % of the total transferred it will probably add up.  The process also takes a few days. 

I'm now looking into how much a bank to bank wire transfer will cost, and if it's not satisfactory I'll probably use Transferwise.  Mainly because I need to transfer over a large amount in the next few months and sites like Xoom.com have limits on how much they'll transfer.  There's a great thread about this around here that has other people chiming in on this issue.  I'll see if I can find it and post the link here. 

Well, this isn't the one I was looking for but it does have several good suggestions for getting money from the US to the UK.....

http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=84600.0

We have used Paypal in the past to send money from the UK to the US and although it was quite speedy, and very easy to do, I must say that the exchange rate wasn't that good when compared to sites such as xe.com when you look deeper into it.


It seems to me that there are just a myriad of options out there and it really depends on what is most suitable to you.

Thinking out loud, she currently banks with Citibank, so I'm thinking about opening a Citibank myself in the UK which, I believe, would allow us free transfers.  The alternative is for her to just send the money to my bank account and pay the $45 dollar fee for each transfer.  Then once everything has been transferred, have her open a UK bank account when she is here and send the money back to her somewhere down the line.

Argh!  This is confusing, I can see why this gives people headaches.

I'm glad I found this thread because it's something I had been wondering about myself (waiting for my paperwork for a move to UK from US).  I don't know how easy the process is, but since someone told me I thought I'd pass on the info. HSBC (based in both countries) allows oversees people to open an account. It takes a while, but otherwise seems fairly painless. Perhaps once the account is open you can wire funds from one bank to the other?

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/overseas-account-opening

We've used Xoom and have been happy with it so far due to the speed.  I do feel that perhaps the rate isn't as good as it could be, but for me to send money to the bf's bank account and for it to be there maybe 20 minutes later is great.

I know Citibank has a few ATMs in London in Canary Wharf, but are they a retail branch too, or is it more for convenience because they have the investment arm?

After reading all the problems US citizens are having getting bank accounts opened here in the UK, I was very surprised that the closest Barclay's Bank (where my fiance has an account) opened an account for me with no fuss at all. 

I too opened an account with Barclay's with no problems.  I don't remember bringing my passport, but I did remember using my British Driver's License.  They also gave me all the information I needed in order to transfer money from my credit union in the U.S. to the new account.  It costs me $50 to transfer money to my British account.  I hadn't intended to keep it when I moved back to the states, but it is much easier to travel around Europe with a chip and pin card rather than a swipey card from the U.S. so I just left a small balance in the account.  I recently updated the address without a problem and even when I have received checks from the U.S. they have let me deposit them directly (there is a waiting period and of course fees).

I have actually been having some problems with my credit union lately and am considering closing it altogether and moving everything to my British account, but it does mean I won't be able to e-file my taxes and pay for my storage shed without asking a family member to do it and reimburse them.

I opened up an account with TSB fairly painlessly. Instead of trying to remember what happened I'll just quote myself:

Opened a new bank account yesterday woo!

I made an appointment with TSB

When I went in they were very friendly The things they asked for were: My visa, a bill with my name on it (brought in my Council Tax bill), and if I was working. I told him I had signed up with Reed.co.uk and being the awesome guy he was he put in the system that I was employed with a temp agency. The reason that's awesome is because I would otherwise be on a "restricted" account until I had some income and it turns out going from a restricted account to a regular one is a nightmare.