Council letter as valid proof of address

alphabravocharli

For you my advice is:

1. Always keep more then 2 current account and 1 E-Bank account like monzo or starling.
2. As you are expat and you must be sending money to home, If you are Pakistani have 1 UBL account and use that for sending money to home.
3. Never ever put cash in bank account.
4. Never give your account number to anyone or try to avoid it to give to unknown person. Apparently in UK there are many scams happening and you will pay the ultimate price. If bank suspect you in any way are involved(which might not be the case). They can put your name on CIFAS and close your account. After that you will not be able to get any bank account in UK.
5. If any unknown money came to your account. Immediately call bank and tell them you this doesn't belong to you. Never try to touch it.

waseem432000

alphabravocharli wrote: »

For you my advice is:

1. Always keep more then 2 current account and 1 E-Bank account like monzo or starling.
2. As you are expat and you must be sending money to home, If you are Pakistani have 1 UBL account and use that for sending money to home.
3. Never ever put cash in bank account.
4. Never give your account number to anyone or try to avoid it to give to unknown person. Apparently in UK there are many scams happening and you will pay the ultimate price. If bank suspect you in any way are involved(which might not be the case). They can put your name on CIFAS and close your account. After that you will not be able to get any bank account in UK.
5. If any unknown money came to your account. Immediately call bank and tell them you this doesn't belong to you. Never try to touch it.

That's what I plan to do eventually. Keep one high street bank account and Monzo account. Receive salary in say HSBC/Natwest and transfer some to Monzo and use that account for daily expenditure. Banking is indeed very different in UK what it was in Pakistan. I was offered a credit card by Standard Chartered in Pakistan on opening a new salary account with them since I was working for one of the biggest IT firms in Pakistan so they thought I was trust worthy enough. The only income I will be receiving in my account will be salary from my employer and thank you for your advice related to keeping myself and my account secure. I don't plan to send too much back home so I probably don't need a UBL account.

waseem432000

Just a quick update if someone comes across this thread. I took my Monzo bank statement at NatWest branch but according to staff, they couldn't accept it as proof of address. Came back home, uploaded it along with my BRP at their online system where i applied for a new current account and I have now received my account details while my debit card is on it's way to my address. That solves my problem for good but still the same thing bothers me that when Bank websites, their on call and on chat help people explain is way different than what actual bank staff is branches accept or believe.

EachPenny

waseem432000 wrote: »

They still asked me for a proof of ID which was my BRP and a selfie picture which they apparently feed to run some face recognition algorithm but to be fair, it's easy to open a bank account and use it for illegal purposes if someone is looking to do that but (A) the whole point I am wondering is that these things are responsibility of British government. They need to enforce their policies to tackle such loopholes and perform check and balances before granting any institution a banking license but once they have granted it, customers shouldn't suffer. I can't even imagine the pain I would be in if I didn't had my Monzo account to receive my salary.

alphabravocharli wrote: »

Waseem as an expat(B) we are not accustomed to the banking traditions implemented in UK. I had same feeling when i came to UK. You will be surprised if you put cash in the bank it will be a big red flag for them and they can close your account even or if you have too many international transfers and their system flag it they will close your account. They will not ask you anything. Simply they will say Dear XXX, we cannot continue business relationship with you and will be closing your account in 2 month time.

If you both stop and think about it, you might appreciate that (B) is as a result of implementing (A).

The process (B) is ongoing on the part of the banks because having been granted a licence they are required to keep complying with the terms of the licence (implementing government regulations) rather than forgetting all about it once they have a bit of paper which allows them to start running a bank.

alphabravocharli

As far as i know, the banking in UK is far too strict and sometimes does not make sense. I have faced issue of Bank account closure without any reason being given. I was regularly doing international transactions as well as keeping just enough money in my account which i needed for my expenses.

If it was closed due to de-risking as i am regularly doing international transaction then they could simply ask me the source of money and why i am transferring which they never bother to do. I am an expat and have lived 30+ of my live outside UK so it is normal for me that i need to send money to my home country.

If it was only that they though i am not worth having as a customer then it is also bad banking habit. I agree they have right to close account but in my point of view its not a good practice.

EachPenny

alphabravocharli wrote: »

As far as i know, the banking in UK is far too strict and sometimes does not make sense. I have faced issue of Bank account closure without any reason being given. I was regularly doing international transactions as well as keeping just enough money in my account which i needed for my expenses.

If it was closed due to de-risking as i am regularly doing international transaction then they could simply ask me the source of money and why i am transferring which they never bother to do. I am an expat and have lived 30+ of my live outside UK so it is normal for me that i need to send money to my home country.

If it was only that they though i am not worth having as a customer then it is also bad banking habit. I agree they have right to close account but in my point of view its not a good practice.

To an extent the problem you have encountered might be a result of the generally-free-to-customers nature of UK current account banking. They will run a current account for you FOC, even if you only keep "just enough money...for your expenses" in it. The costs of checking the source of your funds and the reason for doing the transfer (plus verifying that you are not giving them false information) would need to be paid by someone. If that was included in a foreign transaction charge then it would quickly become uneconomic to send smaller amounts of money overseas.

You'd probably be able to find a bank willing to provide you with a current account to make overseas transfers for you on a regular basis, but they would probably want to charge you a not insignificant sum for the ability to bank in that way.

I understand where you are coming from, I too get frustrated by bank ID requirements sometimes, but accept that if I want a cheap (to the end user) current account banking service then I need to accept restrictions and limits on how I use that service.