Originally Posted by Soozi

With all due respects to previous posters, why are you trying to do this by the back door? Why don't you go direct to the source itself - i.e. the banks - for accurate information?

Lloyds has a good website, for example, which even sets out what ID you need to open an account:

Lloyds Bank - Banking With Us - Moving To The UK - New To The UK

We have moved around between the UK, OZ and NZ for twenty-odd years, and have bank accounts in all three countries, with no problems. My UK bank is First Direct, which is internet-based, and I have found them to be very good. It is part of HSBC, so you can use their branches if you need to. We have no problems operating our UK accounts from OZ, where we are currently. We find it useful to have UK accounts to send presents, flowers etc to relatives, and of course we use our accounts when we go home to visit.

Originally Posted by junejuno

Soozi,
May I ask what correspondence address you gave your bank and has it caused any problems? I want to keep my Santander accounts when i move to Oz and I want them to send correspondence to Oz. Is it best to keep the accounts at a UK address or not?