London Ninja

Banking in the UK has been an absolute nightmare.

When I came over from the US, I was given two “streamlined processes” that I can take. So I already had an edge on someone who did not work for a company with a relationship with a bank. I’ve heard it’s a nightmare to do it yourself. Ultimately it comes down to requiring you to have bills to prove your residence in the UK before banks will give you an account. But you can’t really get a residence without a bank account. WTF.

So I had two options:
1. Natwest UK
2. HSBC Premier International Banking

Being from the US, I decided to go for the HSBC Premier banking because it offers wires between the UK/US (at a crap exchange rate)…about a month ago.

I had to scan and email about 80 different forms of verification documentation to my account manager in the US. I went through two different people, neither of which had any clue what was going on. I just emailed them and left messages for them daily for weeks, usually without any response.

So finally, last week, after many attempts, I got my account manager on the line and voila…apparently the accounts had been opened but no one mentioned it to me. TYVM. The only problem was that my US cards were sent to my parents home and my UK cards were sent to the International banking center in Manchester. Um..TYVM, but I’m in London?!?! I actually had to get the bank to send the cards to my local branch, but as of writing do not have any credit or debit cards yet. Yeah, TYVM.

All of that said, there are two advantages to the Premier banking account:
1. You can do everything through the phone
2. You get a CSR on the phone 24/7
3. I got a 5000gbp overdraft, which I had to use to get my flat.

It was definitely a long drawn out process that HSBC had which I would not recommend. I have no experience with any other banks in the UK, but there has to be better than HSBC. All that said….the Brits say all the banks suck..so maybe banking just sucks overall in the UK. Or maybe banks suck overall across the world, since Americans say the same thing about BofA, Wells, Wamu(probably less so).

The one improvement for banks in the UK is that they don’t assess that ridiculous ATM charge if you use a different bank’s ATM. I’ve always felt that to be ridiculous and why I have gone with my internet banks (FirstIB and eTrade both reimburse ATM fees, not to mention the money-market-esque interest rates).