BristolUK

I think we might have different views on what counts as not particularly high.
Barclays, Lloyds and Nat West require deposits around £25k/£50k or a very high income instead.

Although maybe you can get free banking after removing/reducing your deposit.

robin1234

I think at Lloyds Bank on the IoM you can retain "no fee" status with a minimum balance of 2,500 pounds. (I could be wrong, but I think that is what they told me on the telephone a week or so ago.) However, that is as an established customer, I don't know what the minimum balance to open an account is.

robin1234

I think you can go to the website of the Isle of Man regulatory authority and they maintain a list of all banks operating offshore accounts in the IoM. However, most of them are obscure institutions frequented by sheiks, oligarchs etc. I know that Nationwide Building Society and Lloyds Bank operate ordinary accounts for ordinary people. Probably Barclays and others too. My current account is at Lloyds, and it's been totally fee free and problem free since I opened it nearly a decade ago. It was easy to open, hopefully that would still be the case. You get a regular fee free debit card, cheque book etc. so it works exactly like a UK bank account when you are visiting the UK. And, no interest is paid so no UK or US tax complications! Hmm, is that good or bad?

(Just FBAR and 8938 compliance involved..)

Perth

Mmm,yes, no interest paid might be a bit of a wee problem in the long run, but just to have something set up there before we go would be worth it. And there is no problem sending you the debit card and cheque book to the US? When you were there on vacation, were you able to access the funds easily?

Englishmum

We transferred our UK mainland account with Lloyds Bank to their offshore branch in Douglas, Isle of Man when we relocated to Singapore almost 20 years ago.

We have in that time, moved to New Jersey USA, back to Singapore and currently in Switzerland (right now I'm at our house in NJ for a month, spending Xmas with our son).

Our offshore current account with Lloyds has always been operated seamlessly, they send out new Debit Visa cards to whatever address we have given them, but I must say that we very rarely write out cheques these days (unlike the U.S. where they haven't quite gone out of fashion yet!).

Whenever We've been on trips to the UK we just use our debit cards as any other resident Brit does, whether shopping at Tescos, buying petrol, dining in a pub etc. I don't use much cash, I just use the Debit card (even at the French toll booths!) I also use the Debit cards at ATM machines in the UK (even at Tescos and Asda supermarkets - there is no extra charge) to top,up the credit on my Pay As You Go cheap mobile phone or to get cash. By the way many cashiers at supermarkets and M&S offer cash back up to 50 pounds (it may be more?) when making purchases at their stores.




I also,use my Lloyds Debit card when I order gifts online for UK delivery eg from Amazon UK, Lakeland etc.

Perth

Thanks Englishmum, great info. Sorry to the OP for highjacking your post!

BristolUK

Yes, all the main ones seem to. Their websites have links for international/off shore

May not be difficult but probably not as easy as it was.

A few years ago I was looking at offshore accounts as a possible place to deposit an inheritance cheque (nobody died yet though ) and I saved the links for the various options.

Applications could be done on line with a few documents mailed - or dropped into a UK branch if one happened to be there. But looking at those links now they appear to not let you proceed if you're not meeting whatever requirements they are insisting on, such as income, deposit, intention etc.

No doubt there are are some easier than others.

LondonSquirrel

I think that you might be able to open offshore accounts in the Channel Islands too.

ottotheboar

We have an account with HSBC in the UK and they send new cards etc to the USA.
As mentioned no one really uses cheques any more in the UK.

penguinsix

I opened an HSBC account in their Washington DC branch before I moved to Hong Kong. They arranged the necessary paperwork to arrange an account in Hong Kong so when we arrived it was a simple matter to set that up.

A few years later, I opened an HSBC account in the UK, via both the Hong Kong and US offices. My relationship officer in DC got all the paperwork together, but I needed to sign it in the presence of an HSBC official in Hong Kong who verified my documents. HSBC Hong Kong then shipped it over to HSBC UK and my cards and account arrived a few weeks later.

As a US citizen, I am under FBAR reporting requirements and have to disclose all of these accounts to the Department of the Treasury Money Laundering division.

I should note that I am an HSBC Premier customer which might have made the process a bit easier, but they might offer it for others as well. This allows me to move money between the three accounts via their online site in a matter of seconds. The exchange rate has generally been as good as xe or other forex services.

I also have a Citibank Private banking account, but when we opened a Citibank account in Hong Kong we were informed that Citibank HK and Citibank USA (and presumably Citibank UK) were all different legal entities such that interoperability between accounts was kind of a pain. That was a few years ago so not sure what the status is now.