Peter’s Luggage

I was very pleased yesterday, when I came to one of bigger banks in the UK to my appointed meeting. Actually, I have been in the UK for just for 2 weeks, since I arrived from the Czech Republic (member of EU and EEA), with my personal aim to stay a few years.
Neither having any full-time job nor any rented flat (I am living in one family, for which I work as an au-pair at the moment), I entered Barclays branch with panting..

The target of the meeting was just one - opening my UK standard bank account.

I must say, I was almost shocked how long the meeting was - roughly 45 minutes, but on the other hand, this was partially caused by my “not that fluent” English and my older passport as well, that had to be checked, if there is no chance of fraud, and so on

Basically, for this basic account, you generally need just 2 documents:

• proof of identity - this is well explaindet there at Barclays website
• proof of address - I had a bank statement from country, where I came from - this is apparently one of the best things you can bring to your bank

After checking those ocuments, the guy entering all these details had to ask me for many different things, which I have answered with relatively ease. For example - your mother’s maiden surname, your address over the past three years or so, your income that you have and you’ll have in the nearest time, of course your current address, mobile number, … Then, you’ll probably be offered with four different types of bank accounts - personally, I’d recoment you first one, which is just basic account with a debit card and an internet banking as well as with phone banking ==> all of this is FOR FREE. After some time, you’ll be welcomed to change your account to one of “Additions” - mainly because of an insurance, that those packages includes for 6.50 to 14.50 Ł.

In fine, I must say there were notably lower amount of people than, for example, in Natwest or Lloyds banks, overall feeling is that this might be very personal bank, which gives you personal bank assistant from the beginning, asking you for no money in advance for having a basic bank account (I’ll describe it one time, this will be article about “no proof of address needed” accounts). I hope this feeling will not be changed soon