UK banks and Oz banks and Debt
Feb 2nd 2004, 8:19 am
#1
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UK banks and Oz banks and Debt
Cut and Paste alert!!
There's been a few threads going of late about the quality of Australian banks relative to their UK counterparts. Herman related his unfortunate experience with the Commonwealth Bank. Here's an unfortunate experience by an Aussie couple with UK banks which was reported at the weekend:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspap...982804,00.html
FOREIGN WORKERS RECEIVE A FROSTY RECEPTION
January 31, 2004
Alison Gibson reports on the hurdles an Australian faced when trying to open a bank account:
BRAEMAR in Scotland may be the coldest place in Britain, but for a really frosty reception, you can’t beat a UK bank. So say working visitors from the Antipodes, who are finding it increasingly difficult to open a current account.
When Erin Delahunty arrived in the UK from Australia in November, on a two-year working visa, opening an account was at the top of her to-do list. “You are lost without one,� she says. “You have nowhere to keep your money safely. You cannot get a national insurance number, deposit pay cheques, get on an employer’s payroll or pay rent and other bills.�
But the 24-year-old was dismayed by the dismissive treatment that she received from some of Britain’s best-known banks. Her professional background and earning capacity — greater than that of a typical jobbing backpacker — counted for nothing. Neither, it appeared, did the UK’s close ties with Australia.
Together with her fiancé, who works in accountancy, Ms Delahunty had arrived in London with a generous float of A$10,000 (£4,218) with which to open an account, and references from banks at home and previous landlords. These sensible preparations were, the banks told her, no good to them at all.
The couple first approached HSBC, the self-styled “world’s local bank�, which showed them the door. Halifax also refused them. No one seemed to understand their needs. “It is a chicken and egg situation,� Ms Delahunty says. “We were asked to provide proof of address, such as three months of utility bills and a signed lease. How is someone from Australia supposed to have these without a bank account?� She wonders why the banks have not established a “formula� for dealing with working temporary residents in the UK, of which Australians number 38,000. “We are not Christopher Columbus,� she says. “They must come across people like us all the time.� The couple, who earn a combined gross weekly income of £1,000, were made to feel like money-laundering criminals. “We felt worthless, yet we are contributing to the UK economy,� Ms Delahunty says.
They eventually found a listening ear at Barclays, which offered them an account called Destination UK. The prerequisite for this account, which is aimed at temporary residents, is a salary of at least £25,000 a year. It was not the straightforward account that Ms Delahunty was looking for and, after several weeks of drawn-out bureaucracy, she gave up.
She had to ask a new employer, whom she had hoped to impress, for cash advances. Her fiancé, who had secured a six-month contract with a prestigious finance company, had nowhere to deposit his weekly pay cheques. For extra funds, they had to pay £10 a time to draw money from their bank accounts in Australia.
In desperation, they turned to an agency called 1st Contact, whose target clientele are newcomers in the UK from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. “I did not expect to have to pay someone to get a bank account,� she says.
One of the company’s services is to provide a letter of introduction to a personal banker at a particular branch of NatWest in West London, with whom it has a “special relationship�. This letter is provided as part of an orientation session, called Kickstart UK, that costs £30. The session includes offers that Ms Delahunty did not want, such as a pub voucher, a guide to London and a telephone account.
The couple were told that they could open a joint bank account, but when they arrived for the meeting they were informed that this was not possible. They had to pay £30 each and to apply for two separate accounts.
The only account offered to them was NatWest’s Advantage Gold account, which costs £9 a month. This account includes extras that are unlikely to be of any use in their situation, such as discounts on loans and mortgages.
At the beginning of the meeting, the couple, along with other participants, submitted their passports and proof of address. The latter can be in the form of a tenancy agreement or, if staying with a relative or friend, a letter of confirmation from the host and proof of the letter-writer’s address such as a utility bill or a bank statement. In certain circumstances, a letter from an employer is acceptable.
At the end of the meeting, the “verified� documents were returned to them, together with letters of referral. At the NatWest branch to which they were directed, the couple said that they would prefer a joint, fee-free current account. This was refused.
Ms Delahunty says: “The branch’s attitude was ‘take it or leave it’. We could only change to the account that we wanted after three months.�
A spokesman for NatWest confirmed that this should not have happened. “We apologise to Ms Delahunty. She is entitled to the current account that she wants and we are prepared to open one for her immediately.�
However, the spokesman called Ms Delahunty’s experience a “mistake� and a “misunderstanding� and said that the bank viewed it as an isolated case. He added: “We are happy with 1st Contact’s procedures and have a long-standing relationship with the company.�
Mike Kaye, managing director of 1st Contact, confirmed that the company issues referrals for a “high-service account�, but maintained that “the traveller can change to a more basic ‘no charge’ account, which is effective immediately� and that “joint accounts can be accommodated�. The company refused to divulge details of the bank with which it dealt on the ground that it had to work in a “competitive market�.
And there was this interesting article about debt:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspap...982689,00.html
January 31, 2004
Analyse this: Darian Leader: The psychology of debt
The case of the Goldman Sachs PA who is accused of siphoning more than £4 million from her bosses’ accounts is made more extraordinary by the fact she apparently remained subject to an Individual Voluntary Arrangement with creditors to avoid bankruptcy.
This raises some interesting questions about the significance of debt, something the BBC attempted to look at last week during the launch of its new debt-awareness project. A series of television and radio broadcasts focused on the financial quagmire we seem to have found ourselves in and offered tips on how to handle the desperate situation of owing, collectively, some £930 billion. The British borrow twice as much as other Europeans, and debt, it seems, is spiralling rather than decreasing.
The average British household has debts of £38,000, with many owing 14 times their salary. These grim figures are the worst in Europe, and reports now tell us that rather than eradicating debt, we have to adjust to it and accept it.
But reactions to debt are quite varied. For better or for worse, the situation of owing will revive quite archaic emotional responses in us. It can’t be an accident that most of the world’s main religions have narratives to explain why we should feel indebted, and the very act of birth is taken by some to involve the incurring of a debt.
The poet Heine remarked with wonder that recent religious movements had produced no miracles, with the exception of Saint- Simonianism, since an old tailor’s bill which Saint-Simon had left unpaid was settled in cash by his disciples ten years after his death. In contrast, most mainstream religions prefer to leave us with the sensation of an unpaid debt.
When debt is financial, things are complicated by the fact that money has a symbolic value. Money is never just money. It always means something else as well. At the dawn of our lives, all the material objects we come into contact with are more than material objects. They can be given to us or withheld from us, and so come to symbolise the adult’s love or withdrawal of love. This means that any object will count both “for itself� and as a sign of love. And that’s why we often have such powerful childhood memories about trivial gifts and disappointments.
When we hear about people who have no strict economic need for money yet commit crimes to acquire it, we should question the common-sense idea that money is their motive. If money is always more than money, we need to dig a bit deeper. Financial gain is never the sole reason for crime, and we have to ask what money meant to the person in question. If money is caught up in emotional networks, then sometimes theft only makes sense if the victim is very close.
I once saw a fraudster who would only target people who reminded him of the aunt who had brought him up, although he had not been conscious of the link and he would never spend the money he stole. His thefts were less an act of revenge than the only way he knew to have a relationship.
Such extreme cases occupy one end of the spectrum of financial relations, with ordinary household debt at the other. And when this debt exceeds the necessary, don’t we need to start thinking about the psychology of owing, just as religions have been doing for centuries?
Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst and author
OzTennis
There's been a few threads going of late about the quality of Australian banks relative to their UK counterparts. Herman related his unfortunate experience with the Commonwealth Bank. Here's an unfortunate experience by an Aussie couple with UK banks which was reported at the weekend:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspap...982804,00.html
FOREIGN WORKERS RECEIVE A FROSTY RECEPTION
January 31, 2004
Alison Gibson reports on the hurdles an Australian faced when trying to open a bank account:
BRAEMAR in Scotland may be the coldest place in Britain, but for a really frosty reception, you can’t beat a UK bank. So say working visitors from the Antipodes, who are finding it increasingly difficult to open a current account.
When Erin Delahunty arrived in the UK from Australia in November, on a two-year working visa, opening an account was at the top of her to-do list. “You are lost without one,� she says. “You have nowhere to keep your money safely. You cannot get a national insurance number, deposit pay cheques, get on an employer’s payroll or pay rent and other bills.�
But the 24-year-old was dismayed by the dismissive treatment that she received from some of Britain’s best-known banks. Her professional background and earning capacity — greater than that of a typical jobbing backpacker — counted for nothing. Neither, it appeared, did the UK’s close ties with Australia.
Together with her fiancé, who works in accountancy, Ms Delahunty had arrived in London with a generous float of A$10,000 (£4,218) with which to open an account, and references from banks at home and previous landlords. These sensible preparations were, the banks told her, no good to them at all.
The couple first approached HSBC, the self-styled “world’s local bank�, which showed them the door. Halifax also refused them. No one seemed to understand their needs. “It is a chicken and egg situation,� Ms Delahunty says. “We were asked to provide proof of address, such as three months of utility bills and a signed lease. How is someone from Australia supposed to have these without a bank account?� She wonders why the banks have not established a “formula� for dealing with working temporary residents in the UK, of which Australians number 38,000. “We are not Christopher Columbus,� she says. “They must come across people like us all the time.� The couple, who earn a combined gross weekly income of £1,000, were made to feel like money-laundering criminals. “We felt worthless, yet we are contributing to the UK economy,� Ms Delahunty says.
They eventually found a listening ear at Barclays, which offered them an account called Destination UK. The prerequisite for this account, which is aimed at temporary residents, is a salary of at least £25,000 a year. It was not the straightforward account that Ms Delahunty was looking for and, after several weeks of drawn-out bureaucracy, she gave up.
She had to ask a new employer, whom she had hoped to impress, for cash advances. Her fiancé, who had secured a six-month contract with a prestigious finance company, had nowhere to deposit his weekly pay cheques. For extra funds, they had to pay £10 a time to draw money from their bank accounts in Australia.
In desperation, they turned to an agency called 1st Contact, whose target clientele are newcomers in the UK from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. “I did not expect to have to pay someone to get a bank account,� she says.
One of the company’s services is to provide a letter of introduction to a personal banker at a particular branch of NatWest in West London, with whom it has a “special relationship�. This letter is provided as part of an orientation session, called Kickstart UK, that costs £30. The session includes offers that Ms Delahunty did not want, such as a pub voucher, a guide to London and a telephone account.
The couple were told that they could open a joint bank account, but when they arrived for the meeting they were informed that this was not possible. They had to pay £30 each and to apply for two separate accounts.
The only account offered to them was NatWest’s Advantage Gold account, which costs £9 a month. This account includes extras that are unlikely to be of any use in their situation, such as discounts on loans and mortgages.
At the beginning of the meeting, the couple, along with other participants, submitted their passports and proof of address. The latter can be in the form of a tenancy agreement or, if staying with a relative or friend, a letter of confirmation from the host and proof of the letter-writer’s address such as a utility bill or a bank statement. In certain circumstances, a letter from an employer is acceptable.
At the end of the meeting, the “verified� documents were returned to them, together with letters of referral. At the NatWest branch to which they were directed, the couple said that they would prefer a joint, fee-free current account. This was refused.
Ms Delahunty says: “The branch’s attitude was ‘take it or leave it’. We could only change to the account that we wanted after three months.�
A spokesman for NatWest confirmed that this should not have happened. “We apologise to Ms Delahunty. She is entitled to the current account that she wants and we are prepared to open one for her immediately.�
However, the spokesman called Ms Delahunty’s experience a “mistake� and a “misunderstanding� and said that the bank viewed it as an isolated case. He added: “We are happy with 1st Contact’s procedures and have a long-standing relationship with the company.�
Mike Kaye, managing director of 1st Contact, confirmed that the company issues referrals for a “high-service account�, but maintained that “the traveller can change to a more basic ‘no charge’ account, which is effective immediately� and that “joint accounts can be accommodated�. The company refused to divulge details of the bank with which it dealt on the ground that it had to work in a “competitive market�.
And there was this interesting article about debt:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspap...982689,00.html
January 31, 2004
Analyse this: Darian Leader: The psychology of debt
The case of the Goldman Sachs PA who is accused of siphoning more than £4 million from her bosses’ accounts is made more extraordinary by the fact she apparently remained subject to an Individual Voluntary Arrangement with creditors to avoid bankruptcy.
This raises some interesting questions about the significance of debt, something the BBC attempted to look at last week during the launch of its new debt-awareness project. A series of television and radio broadcasts focused on the financial quagmire we seem to have found ourselves in and offered tips on how to handle the desperate situation of owing, collectively, some £930 billion. The British borrow twice as much as other Europeans, and debt, it seems, is spiralling rather than decreasing.
The average British household has debts of £38,000, with many owing 14 times their salary. These grim figures are the worst in Europe, and reports now tell us that rather than eradicating debt, we have to adjust to it and accept it.
But reactions to debt are quite varied. For better or for worse, the situation of owing will revive quite archaic emotional responses in us. It can’t be an accident that most of the world’s main religions have narratives to explain why we should feel indebted, and the very act of birth is taken by some to involve the incurring of a debt.
The poet Heine remarked with wonder that recent religious movements had produced no miracles, with the exception of Saint- Simonianism, since an old tailor’s bill which Saint-Simon had left unpaid was settled in cash by his disciples ten years after his death. In contrast, most mainstream religions prefer to leave us with the sensation of an unpaid debt.
When debt is financial, things are complicated by the fact that money has a symbolic value. Money is never just money. It always means something else as well. At the dawn of our lives, all the material objects we come into contact with are more than material objects. They can be given to us or withheld from us, and so come to symbolise the adult’s love or withdrawal of love. This means that any object will count both “for itself� and as a sign of love. And that’s why we often have such powerful childhood memories about trivial gifts and disappointments.
When we hear about people who have no strict economic need for money yet commit crimes to acquire it, we should question the common-sense idea that money is their motive. If money is always more than money, we need to dig a bit deeper. Financial gain is never the sole reason for crime, and we have to ask what money meant to the person in question. If money is caught up in emotional networks, then sometimes theft only makes sense if the victim is very close.
I once saw a fraudster who would only target people who reminded him of the aunt who had brought him up, although he had not been conscious of the link and he would never spend the money he stole. His thefts were less an act of revenge than the only way he knew to have a relationship.
Such extreme cases occupy one end of the spectrum of financial relations, with ordinary household debt at the other. And when this debt exceeds the necessary, don’t we need to start thinking about the psychology of owing, just as religions have been doing for centuries?
Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst and author
OzTennis
Feb 2nd 2004, 8:25 am
#2
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 11,149
Mrs BP turned up at Barclays and was issued an account 2 days after getting off the plane. 3 months into her job she was issued with a credit card. Not a single fee paid.
When is megs going to turn up with comparative personal debt stats?
When is megs going to turn up with comparative personal debt stats?
Feb 2nd 2004, 8:47 am
#3
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Joined: Nov 2003
Location: Scotland
Posts: 7,949
Originally posted by bondipom
Mrs BP turned up at Barclays and was issued an account 2 days after getting off the plane. 3 months into her job she was issued with a credit card. Not a single fee paid.
When is megs going to turn up with comparative personal debt stats?
Mrs BP turned up at Barclays and was issued an account 2 days after getting off the plane. 3 months into her job she was issued with a credit card. Not a single fee paid.
When is megs going to turn up with comparative personal debt stats?
I did notice in the second article that British debt was twice that of the rest of Europe and a figure of £38,000 per household average (about $90,000) was mentioned. That of course would exclude mortgage debt. Over to Megs with comparative figures!
OzTennis
Feb 2nd 2004, 8:53 am
#4
Banned
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 4,432
Drink and be giddy:
US US:
personal debt among adults in the UK now averaging £4,426.
Personal debt 'doubled since 1998'
$26G / 20M = $1,300 per capita (adults ~$2,600?).
Home debt grows faster than ever
US US:
personal debt among adults in the UK now averaging £4,426.
Personal debt 'doubled since 1998'
$26G / 20M = $1,300 per capita (adults ~$2,600?).
Home debt grows faster than ever
Feb 2nd 2004, 9:04 am
#5
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Thread Starter
Joined: Nov 2003
Location: Scotland
Posts: 7,949
Originally posted by Megalania
Drink and be giddy:
US US:
personal debt among adults in the UK now averaging £4,426.
Personal debt 'doubled since 1998'
$26G / 20M = $1,300 per capita (adults ~$2,600?).
Home debt grows faster than ever
Drink and be giddy:
US US:
personal debt among adults in the UK now averaging £4,426.
Personal debt 'doubled since 1998'
$26G / 20M = $1,300 per capita (adults ~$2,600?).
Home debt grows faster than ever
OzTennis
Feb 2nd 2004, 9:11 am
#6
Guest
Posts: n/a
Originally posted by OzTennis
Yep, I'm sure experiences will differ from visitor to visitor. If the person you see wants to play 'more than my jobsworth' then they can insist on the utility bills etc before opening the account. I would have thought though that the references from Oz bank manager etc would have sufficed.
I did notice in the second article that British debt was twice that of the rest of Europe and a figure of £38,000 per household average (about $90,000) was mentioned. That of course would exclude mortgage debt. Over to Megs with comparative figures!
OzTennis
Yep, I'm sure experiences will differ from visitor to visitor. If the person you see wants to play 'more than my jobsworth' then they can insist on the utility bills etc before opening the account. I would have thought though that the references from Oz bank manager etc would have sufficed.
I did notice in the second article that British debt was twice that of the rest of Europe and a figure of £38,000 per household average (about $90,000) was mentioned. That of course would exclude mortgage debt. Over to Megs with comparative figures!
OzTennis
Feb 2nd 2004, 9:25 am
#7
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Posts: 7,949
Originally posted by ABCDiamond
I think that the £38,000 must include mortgage debt.
I think that the £38,000 must include mortgage debt.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/...e/ser03-14.asp
OzTennis
Feb 2nd 2004, 9:29 am
#9
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Originally posted by OzTennis
UK household debt now £827.6 billion - divide that by the population, let alone households and you get a lot more than £38,000!
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/...e/ser03-14.asp
OzTennis
UK household debt now £827.6 billion - divide that by the population, let alone households and you get a lot more than £38,000!
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/...e/ser03-14.asp
OzTennis
Feb 2nd 2004, 9:35 am
#10
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Originally posted by ABCDiamond
What is the population of the UK now ?
What is the population of the UK now ?
OzTennis
Feb 2nd 2004, 9:40 am
#11
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Posts: n/a
Originally posted by OzTennis
58,789,194 (2001 Census). Have I made a 'blue' with my mental arithmetic!
OzTennis
58,789,194 (2001 Census). Have I made a 'blue' with my mental arithmetic!
OzTennis
I was beginning to wonder how many British had left those shores since I did !!!
Feb 2nd 2004, 9:47 am
#12
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Posts: n/a
Originally posted by OzTennis
UK household debt now £827.6 billion - divide that by the population, let alone households and you get a lot more than £38,000!
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/...e/ser03-14.asp
OzTennis
UK household debt now £827.6 billion - divide that by the population, let alone households and you get a lot more than £38,000!
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/...e/ser03-14.asp
OzTennis
Total household debt is defined as the amount owed by UK households at any time as a consequence of past borrowing. The amount owed can rise each month through new purchases on credit and the addition of interest payable on existing debt or it can fall through repayments. This can be subdivided to include non-mortgage and housing mortgage debt
Total UK household debt now stands at £827.6 billion
Feb 2nd 2004, 9:50 am
#13
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Originally posted by ABCDiamond
Just a little one
I was beginning to wonder how many British had left those shores since I did !!!
Just a little one
I was beginning to wonder how many British had left those shores since I did !!!
OzTennis
Feb 2nd 2004, 9:53 am
#14
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Posts: n/a
Originally posted by OzTennis
I stand, nay I sit, corrected.
OzTennis
I stand, nay I sit, corrected.
OzTennis
Feb 2nd 2004, 10:06 am
#15
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Originally posted by ABCDiamond
Open a bottle and join me in a wee dram
Open a bottle and join me in a wee dram
OzTennis
