foreigngirl

For one reason or another, I'm not prepared to completely cut my ties with UK banking. As I won't have a UK address, it looks like I will need to open an offshore account. I'm currently with Barclays and looking into their iBank option.

I've also looked into HSBC's Advantage and Premier accounts.

Any others worth looking at?
Many thanks.

MarkG

Not recently, but when I set up an account before emigrating so I could convert my money to Canadian dollars at good rates most had very high minimum balance requirements (10k pounds or so, I think).

Note that you may well be able to keep a British bank account if you have one, my UK bank didn't have a problem with me changing my address to Canada.

christmasoompa

Ditto.

foreigngirl

Thank you for this info. I have a meeting at Barclays tomorrow, so would ask about this. It would make my life much easier.

JonboyE

Ditto too. I still have my UK account with HSBC and a Nat West credit card. Neither has a problem with me being in Canada for years. Mrs JonboyE kept here Barclays account open for ten years after we left. It was hard work to get them to close it.

Given the problems you will have opening a new account if you go back to the UK I would be very reluctant to close your existing account.

MarkG

That was the main reason I kept mine open, it only has a couple of thousand pounds in it now.

Aviator

Have had a UK account and offshore for the past 20 years with no issues living in Canada.

Mikeypm

I'm not sure if Canada can be compared to Europe. But when I lived in Denmark I continued to have and use my UK bank account and credit card without any issues

ultrarunner

Does the Isle of Man count as offshore?

pdarwin

I had an IOM offshore account for several years. Closed it down when I couldn't keep the minimum 5k balance.

Collie

Speaking from experience, if you DO decide to open an offshore account, do it before you go! We didn't, and of course needed to show proof of current address to open the account - utility bills, etc. But if you move around a bit renting and buying it takes a while to get a bill which matches where you currently live. Plus we had to send notarised copies of documents which costs.

foreigngirl

Thank you for all the contributions.

To all the people that have kept their UK banks accounts - so did you change your UK addresses to Canadian ones?

Yes, IOM, Jersey, etc. are offshore accounts.

Collie

Nationwide Building Society are perfectly happy with the idea of us living in Canada. They even post statements to us over here.

MarkG

Yes. I just wrote to them saying I would be living in Canada for the forseeable future and I'd switch to online statements so they didn't have to mail one every month.

They've sent cheque books and ATM cards to me here since then with no issues. I did cancel my UK credit cards once I had Canadian cards to replace them.

Novocastrian

I also had a UK account for many years after I left in 1977. No problem at all. I closed it when I needed the contents for a down payment on a house over here in 1993. More recently I opened an offshore account, in Jersey, because I had inherited a certain amount in sterling, to receive which from the solicitor doing probate, I needed a sterling account. No problem there either.