dyfed

I am a Brit living in the Caribbean,I am wondering if I can open a bank account without a UK address? I do have a son living in the UK and I am thinking of moving back next year,I will be in the UK sometime this year,when it would be a great chance to open an account,if I can...

Englishmum

All of the main UK High street banks and many building societies. have branches 'offshore' in Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. They are in operation especially for expats and non-UK residents.

When we moved overseas we transferred our LloydsTSB account from Epping, Essex to their offshore branch in Douglas, IoM. It operates in exactly the same way as a mainland account, except that we are outside the jurisdiction of the Inland Revenue (although we do pay tax on letting our house out).

When we move back to the UK mainland we will just transfer the offshore account to a local branch.

Just look up 'offshore banking' for the islands listed above, eg. LloydsTSB, Barclays, Co-Operative Bank, NatWest, HSBC etc. etc. and they all have info on their websites on how to open an account (eg. send in notarised copies of your passport etc.) as all banks UK or otherwise need to check that you're not an international money launderer!

dunroving

Agreed - it is very, very difficult these days to open a high street bank account in the UK if you live overseas. When I lived in the US, Smile/Co-Op bank wouldn't let me open a new current account, even though I already had two accounts with them (an old ISA and a savings account).

Simplest is probably to open an offshore account with a UK bank, as EM says.

Swisstony

worth considering opening an account *locally* with HSBC and then asking them if they can help you with opening a UK account - we found they really did deliver on this 'world's local bank' thing....

dunroving

HSBC is the bank that comes up most often as being cooperative in situations where people are returning to the UK from overseas, but I'm not sure I've read anyone say they were able to open a UK-based account with them while resident overseas.

And opening too many bank accounts can harm your credit rating ... but it may be worth a try (or at least enquiring).

lf1

I used HSBC in Canada and they opened a Cdn based account and a UK based account for me. Very easy to move money from one country to the other online.

dyfed

Thank you to everyone.
I did see online HSBC would let you open an account with a oversea address,I will take my passport and a current electric and water bills,as prove I live at the address .