UK Expat Bank Account?
 

We've been living in Canada for a year now. We still have a property in the UK and a mortgage. We have bank accounts still active for the mortgage payments and we've been finding that we still seem to have bills to pay or things to deal with. We're struggling now because to set up new payments we need the OTP # texted to us and we no longer have UK phones. I'm wondering what the best bank account is for our situation? I just looked at the HSBC Expat account but we won't have the minimum balance. I don't want to pay an arm and a leg in bank fees either. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Re: UK Expat Bank Account?
 

Re: UK Expat Bank Account?
 

Whatever you do, hold on to your existing UK account and make it work, it is murder to open a new UK account if you are not actually living in the UK.

Re: UK Expat Bank Account?
 

Get a dual sim phone and a UK sim card?

That's what I use.

Re: UK Expat Bank Account?
 

This^^^^^^

1,000 times!

Re: UK Expat Bank Account?
 

Me too. Or just get a cheap phone and keep a UK sim card in it, on a pay as you go plan. The PAYG plane I am on with O2 requires a "chargeable use" at least once every six months to keep the credit, plan and my mobile phone number alive. I send a text to my Canadian number once every month or so as a regular "chargeable use". I've been operating my UK sim card abroad for about 15 years without incident and it's meant that UK banking and various other things that require receipt of a code or some such can all be easily done.

Re: UK Expat Bank Account?
 

I've moved your thread to the Maple Leaf Forum as it's not about Canada - you could also get a 'virtual' VOIP UK number and have text messages automatically ported to your Canada phone. :)

Re: UK Expat Bank Account?
 

My UK bank advised me they are soon going down this route. I jiggled my financial arrangements around a bit and quickly registered the only new payment I'm likely to have, which I previously used my debit card for but that would involve the text to a phone I don't have - not even a cell phone over here.
I had to dig out my old card reader to do that but I should now be okay as the payee is an existing one.

I wonder if it can be done via the secure message feature if the ban has one. I used to use it for transferring money and advising them of expected cash withdrawals while abroad. ;)

Re: UK Expat Bank Account?
 

We still have our nat West accounts and they send texts to our Canadian phone- not sure what the problem is.

Re: UK Expat Bank Account?
 

My UK bank will only text to a UK mobile number. It sounds like the OP's bank will either only do the same or to a UK landline.
Others have suggested a couple of ways around it but they appear to include additional expense over and above current phone (landline or cell) usage.

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I wonder...might it be possible that with UK banks expecting customers to be UK resident they don't really mean text messages only to UK phones, they just assume their customers will have UK phones and that, in practice, these messages will work on all (or at least Canadian) ones?

eg I have known Canadian Credit cards where the bank insists on a landline but others on BE have given their cell numbers instead and have had no issues.