Au Pair Bank Account

Almamay

BazzyB, thank you for this. I shall look into it and perhaps we will pop into a branch today. :-)

ChrisNY_2

Last December I was able to open a full current account with TSB showing only my EU passport. The account opened within few minutes and the debit card and pin was mailed to my UK address. They will request to send you first mails (card and pin) in the address you state as residential.

Later you can have 2 different addresses (1 residential and 1 correspondence for the mails (statements,new cards,etc)).

I hope this will help.

rmbandies

Our second au pair has just started with us, and we are having similar problems with banks. We were able to "introduce" our previous au pair to the bank that we use and, once she had shown her passport, she was able to open a standard UK current account. No longer. Every bank that we have spoken to has said that, to open ANY form of account whatsoever, our new au pair must have proof of address or be certified by a pillar of the community who has known her here for at least 12 months. She has been with us for 1 week.
Without going into details, we cannot have her added to our council tax or utility bills. Her bank at home refused to send anything to her in the UK (no explanation, just "No") so she cannot get proof of address this way. She is not enrolling on any study courses, as she wants to simply immerse herself in English to improve her language skills. She has a full EU driving license so getting a UK provisional license seems ridiculous; we are not even sure if it is legal to have more than 1 driving license anyway.
We have invited this young lady into our country, and bureaucracy treats her like a criminal. We understand the need for thorough vetting, but something has gone wrong when honest people cannot get past this hurdle. We cannot be the only people to have had this problem since the banks further tightened the regulations. Can anyone help? PLEASE!

colsten

It isn't exactly totally surprising that it is not easy these days for foreign citizens to get bank accounts anywhere, not just in the UK. I am glad this is the case (and no, I don't vote UKIP or other right-wing party).

It is also not exactly totally surprising that one person can get an account in a foreign country and another person cannot. We should all be petrified if this wasn't the case.

Did you try Lloyds, as previously suggested? http://www.lloydsbank.com/banking-with-us/joining-lloyds/new-to-the-uk.asp

If yes, what was the problem at Lloyds?

As an aside, why can't you have her added to your council tax or utility bills? There is no law against UK residents being recipients of council tax or utility bills.

bazzyb

rmbandies wrote: »

Our second au pair has just started with us, and we are having similar problems with banks. We were able to "introduce" our previous au pair to the bank that we use and, once she had shown her passport, she was able to open a standard UK current account. No longer. Every bank that we have spoken to has said that, to open ANY form of account whatsoever, our new au pair must have proof of address or be certified by a pillar of the community who has known her here for at least 12 months. She has been with us for 1 week.
Without going into details, we cannot have her added to our council tax or utility bills. Her bank at home refused to send anything to her in the UK (no explanation, just "No") so she cannot get proof of address this way. She is not enrolling on any study courses, as she wants to simply immerse herself in English to improve her language skills. She has a full EU driving license so getting a UK provisional license seems ridiculous; we are not even sure if it is legal to have more than 1 driving license anyway.
We have invited this young lady into our country, and bureaucracy treats her like a criminal. We understand the need for thorough vetting, but something has gone wrong when honest people cannot get past this hurdle. We cannot be the only people to have had this problem since the banks further tightened the regulations. Can anyone help? PLEASE!

As per my post #11 above, all Lloyds ask for is a passport or EU/EEA ID card.

rmbandies

Thank you for your reply, but we spent over an hour in the branch of Lloyds in which we are registered, and where we are well known by the staff. Apparently the law has changed within the last year (even though Lloyds have not updated their website), and to open any account whatsoever now, any new applicant must have proof of identity AND proof of address so as to satisfy the tightened money laundering and fraud prevention laws.

10pence

Since the au pair will only be staying in UK for a period of time - just like an international student - the bank could open the account on an overseas address and possibly add a UK address for correspondence.
HSBC use to do this all the time in the past.

rmbandies

Thanks for all replies.
We cannot add our au pair to our council tax bill as we live in MoD family accommodation so council tax is deducted from our salary at source with no actual bill.
As for our utility supplier, they will only allow 1 name on the account, so even my wife cannot be added! That said, even if we could add another person, the account has online billing only, and online bills are not allowed as proof of address either.
For reference, car insurance paperwork was not accepted either.
As we originally stated, we understand that banks need to be careful, but there really needs to be some provision for people who find themselves unable to provide the standard paperwork through no fault of their own. In the past, one of the old "Basic" accounts would have been an option for us, but even these are now no longer available to us (as we were informed by the banks that we asked).

Thrugelmir

rmbandies wrote: »

Thank you for your reply, but we spent over an hour in the branch of Lloyds in which we are registered, and where we are well known by the staff. Apparently the law has changed within the last year (even though Lloyds have not updated their website), and to open any account whatsoever now, any new applicant must have proof of identity AND proof of address so as to satisfy the tightened money laundering and fraud prevention laws.

Seems reasonable.

grumbler

Seems stupid, especially for EU.