How to avoid to get a UK bank account!
January 05, 2005Some of you may have realized the astonishing number of business as well as private banks here in the UK. For someone like me coming from Germany, it's really amazing how all these banks can survive. In Germany, e.g., the only things you could see done by banks were: cost reduction, firing employees, closing down branches and some of them did even turn back their engagement for good customer service.
Not so here in the UK. The customer is the king or the queen. The entire country is service oriented and tries to give you the best you can get. So the banks do too. The first thing you may need if you're going to relocate to the UK is a bank account. Without a bank account no UK mobile phone, no energy, no gas, no water - almost nothing.
But be aware of customer pickers! However, if one got you into a bank branch anyway, here are a few tips how you can avoid to get a bank account:
- The easiest thing is: just say you don't have a proof of your UK address. Since banks mostly (only) accept utility bills (gas, energy, water, telephone) as proof of an address, it will be quite evident to them that you don't have such a bill. Or how do you want to get a utility bill if you need a bank account first to apply for gas or energy or water supply?
The next tips are a bit tricky but I am sure you're able to manage these too:
- Mention, that you are an EU citizen.
- Mention, that you will earn a competitive annual salary but you do not plan to spend more than appr. 50% of your monthly salary payment each month.
- Mention, that you have so far only 2 or even less credit cards.
- Mention, that your credit cards are mostly paid off by the end of each month.
- Mention, that you will rarely need an overdraft.
If you're fine with all this, you have the best chances that they do not want to have you as their customer. Should they're going to offer you a bank account anyway, which possibly will be a basic account, then they will give you about six month time to get rid off most of the facts mentioned above. Since you might not be able to change your nationality at once, try to fix the other problems. Once you will have done this, you will be a very warm welcomed customer for them.
