British Expats - Banking upon return

British Expats (https://britishexpats.com/forum/)

- Moving back or to the UK (https://britishexpats.com/forum/moving-back-uk-61/)

- - Banking upon return (https://britishexpats.com/forum/moving-back-uk-61/banking-upon-return-787000/)

Re: Banking upon return

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hino (Post 10545759)

Hi if1,

I tried the route of opening an HSBC UK account from Australia following advice I received from someone on this site, but I found that it was just too difficult. I had to first open a HSBC Australian account as well as a UK account. And as you have stated, the form filling was a mega task and also the service was far from cheap. Though I do recall that I received first class service from company when I made my enquiry. They gave me my own 'consultant' and a direct contact number for the person.

My experience was the same, I was required to deposit 500 pounds a month into the account.

I am taking a cash passport with me, it uses local currency, can be loaded with up to 6 different currencies using Bpay and is good for five years.

Plenty of time to locally source a UK bank account.

Re: Banking upon return

Re my earlier post about Barclays Bank and the information I was given over the internet.

When I arrived in UK and walked into the local branch the manager there informed me that the 'information' I had received was wrong and that the only account I could open would be an international account and that was a pretty involved process.

As luck would have it, I had booked accommodation in that town for two weeks and the helpful manager said that he could accept my holiday accommodation address to open a both a UK current and a savings account. One of the requirements for both of these accounts is that you have to be resident in UK for tax purposes, though the fact that I was not yet a resident didn't bother the manager.

Thanks to his help and Barclays rapid processing of both my accounts and debit cards, the situation was resolved within a week.