Just where to begin
Oh my word, I've been waiting for this question for a long, long time. on my list of "favourite institutions in the world" banks are right up there at the, er, bottom. When dealing with banks, you have to keep in mind a paraphrase of one of Neil Kinnock's most famous speeches. I warn you not to be different, not to be unusual, not to require discretion, not to require common sense, not to expect customer service, not to expect logic and above all not to need them to do anything more complicated than pay in a crumpled fiver.

Mrs TBS isn't British. Or at least she wasn't at the time she first moved to start living with me in this country. As part of getting her settled and introduced to a whole new way of living, getting her a bank account so she could manage the money she would either be earning or that I would be giving her for her independence was one of the biggest priorities.

This was going to be a struggle as being new in the country she had very few means to prove her address. Fortunately (I thought) her country was one of the few whose citizens are still required to register with the police if they are coming for an extended stay. This required us to queue for three hours at a dingy office and pay £35 for a nice certificate with a Home Office seal and a signature from the head of the met, confirming that she was living at x address and that the police knew about it. We sat down in our local branch of Barclays and asked to open an account and presented this document. "Oh, but this is not a valid proof of address" said the drone. I failed to understand why. It was issued by a government department, it had her photograph on it, it was stamped with a date and the autograph of the official who processed it. It contained no less (and a great deal more) information and official confirmation of our address than say, a driving licence, which we were told would be a suitable alternative. I asked to see the manager, a terrifying harridan of a woman who sat alternately stroking her moustache or with her arms folded and told me in a patronising manner that this document was not on "the list" and so could not be accepted as proof we were not terrorists or something. Without the proof she would have to presume we were and invite us to leave.

That's right. A manager of a high street bank told my future wife that she was probably a terrorist and would not be offering her any services. They also lost my own lifetime of custom in that moment.

So we went down the route of putting a utility bill in her name, tricky as at the time we were in a shared house with all bills going through the housemates and landlords name. Still we changed the leccy bill, only the account was paperless, the bill presented once a quarter as an onscreen pdf. "Just call if this is a problem at any time" said the company. We phoned up and asked for a printed copy, and in the post duly arrived, er a two sheet printout of the pdf. We approached a branch of NatWest and their customer services desk. Bespectacled moron there told us this wasn't acceptable as it wasn't "a proper bill" posted to our address. Yes it was, I countered. I could use his computer to log on to my online account and show him the same bill on the screen. Not possible I was told. I offered to show him the envelope with the company logo on it in which the sheets of paper had arrived, but that still wasn't good enough. Rather than attempt to help or show human understanding, he sat on his hands and invited us to leave the premises.

We went away and considered our options and forgot to pay the bill. So a red reminder arrived - through the post! Filled with optimism we went back to NatWest only to discover in the three weeks since our last visit they had changed their policies (without updating their website or in-branch brochures) and now required TWO separate proofs of address from two different sources. We were shown a small printed card on the customer services desk advising of this change. I'm amazed they picked up any new business at all in that time, so carefully did they keep this new policy a secret. We left never to darken their doors again.

In we went to a branch of Lloyds TSB, who, we were assured still only required one proof of address. The lady on the counter looked at it and said "oh, this is a reminder bill. That won't be accepted." I asked why. "It calls into question your fiscal competence and credit-worthiness." I pointed out that we were applying for a basic bank account, one which dealt solely in cash and which offered no overdraft facilities of any kind and supplied the owner with a cash card for use in machines only. This was, we were told, irrelevant. They would not be willing to accept our custom.

By this time we had moved to our own place together. This opened up another route of "proof of address" and so decided to buy the contents insurance in her name. A check on the FSA website confirmed that proof of insurance for a property was an acceptable proof of residency - after all why would you insure your possessions at an address you don't live at? Finding a bank whose own internal policies would allow such a proof proved near impossible though, but whilst making an enquiry at HSBC the girl there told us that whilst she couldn't take the insurance certificate, the red electricity bill we also had on us would be fine. "Even though it is red?" I asked. She looked surprised, "a bill is a bill", she told us sweetly, "this is more than sufficient proof of address".

So we sat and waited for the application to be processed. Two weeks later an apologetic note came back noting that the bill we had offered was more than three months old and did we have any supplementary documentation to confirm proof of address? On the list of acceptable items was - you guessed it - a certificate of home insurance. Going back to the branch to let them photocopy it, the drone at the desk was unable to explain why the insurance was not acceptable for the initial approach but was fine for secondary confirmation. Still, victory was ours at last. It had only taken 15 months from arrival in the country to actually finding a bank willing to offer my other half even the most basic of services, during which time she had been forced to have her wages for her job paid to me and then withdrawn in cash which she kept in a box under the bed.

As a postscript to this story, two weeks after getting her basic bank account, Mrs Stuck went to her branch to correct one of her personal details (her name was spelled wrong on the card) and was enthusiastically upsold an HSBC Premier account complete with debit card and £500 overdraft by a target-chasing under-manager who happily fibbed on the application form as her earnings at that stage were just under the threshold needed to qualify. You read that correctly. The banks were not able to show discretion and flexibility over their internal rules when processing the documents required to become a brand new customer of theirs, but were clearly happy for their staff to encourage customers to lie about their financial circumstances in order to meet what were clearly head office sales targets for premium products.

What made me laugh most of all, was that when sitting on their hands and refusing to help, the banks insisted that they were scared of the FSA rules and the spankings that would result if they deviated one inch from their money-laundering protocols. This would be the self-same FSA which was kicked from all sides over their lack of ability to regulate the banks over their free-for-all lending that subsequently put them billions in the hole and precipitated a financial meltdown of unprecedented proportions.

Length, I know, but this did take over a year. And I'm only just getting started.
(TalkbackStuck making obscene phonecalls since, Sun 19 Jul 2009, 16:28, 11 replies)

I do love
the way that an official government document is not good enough for banks but the electricity bill will do just fine!
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Sun 19 Jul 2009, 18:16, closed)

Same thing happened to me with mrs. powervator
In the end I got so frustrated that I just 'shopped her name to my council tax bill and we took that and her passport and they gave her a basic bank account.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Sun 19 Jul 2009, 20:03, closed)

.
Haha, nice one.
( 100% Cock Raw like carrots., Tue 21 Jul 2009, 15:02, closed)

They're scared of The List here too
I had trouble opening an account when I moved here (Canada) but nothing like your story (it only took about 1 month). The thing I found amusing was that university student ID was on The List of acceptable ID, but my university faculty ID wasn't allowed. Neither was any of my aussie ID - including my passport.
They also wanted to see a credit card, which was problematic because I'd decided to cancel my aussie one so as not to pay fees on a card I wasn't using and had replaced it with a visa debit which apparently doesn't count (I convinced them that it did count by saying I'd see if any other banks would accept it).
(xanthine, Sun 19 Jul 2009, 21:21, closed)

I checked with Barclays
They just need the last three bank statements from country of origin to open an account
(Halfy By light alone, Sun 19 Jul 2009, 22:29, closed)

Useful to know
This is either a) an enlightened new policy (entirely possible, the banks are screwed and now need every deposit they can get) or b) something that always was the case but which the staff were unaware or too lazy to sort out.

This is (or was) part of the problem. Asking staff in a bank to do anything out of the ordinary, something that would involve checking manuals or consulting with head office was just too much trouble. Far, far easier to sit back and say "sorry, we can't help you". Why should they go out of their way when their branches were filled with other customers whose needs were much more straightforward.

This is also why I envy what used to be the American model. Every town had small local banks with just the odd one or two branches, all competing fiercely for the small pool of customers. Mess up and they would shit a brick at their custom crossing the road to their rival, so they did everything they could to kiss your arse.

Try asking a behemoth like Lloyds TSB to kiss your arse to avoid losing your custom. Just try it.
(TalkbackStuck making obscene phonecalls since, Sun 19 Jul 2009, 23:19, closed)

I must be one of the lucky ones .. .. .. .. ..
LLoyds TSB have been fantastic to me and mrsff over the years. When other banks didn't want our business account (who are now, stupid stupid Natwest, bombarding us with "switch to us" advertising) LLoyds welcomed us. When other banks wouldn't give us a mortgage LLoyds gave us one. When we needed a £30k loan so we could extend our house guess which bank offered us the best interest rates?

Sure I've had the odd minor niggle with them but nothing as bad as the experiences my family have had with Barclays who re-reading the initial post were almost as crap towards you.
(manwiddicombe is thinking of something witty to add here, Sun 19 Jul 2009, 23:43, closed)

I was thinking the same re: Natwest
they've had my custom for the entire almost 28 years of my life, and will continue to do so as they have provided nothing but first class service.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 10:07, closed)

I was just wondering
where you wife is from, and why she has to tell teh fuzz where she lives?
( Soggy, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 9:10, closed)

Ukraine
Which is apparently one of a tiny handful of countries that is still covered by some arcane piece of legislation which means that anyone on a non-tourist but still fixed term visa taking up residency in the country has to register with the plod like it was some totalitarian regime.

I almost kicked off the day we went to do it when they told me there was a £35 charge for doing so. Non-negotiable, as without the registration the visa was invalid. Nobody was able to explain to me why we were charged £70 for the visa in the first place and then had to pay 50% of it again to actually use it.

The icing on the cake was the fact that our £35 paid for a shitty piece of pink paper with a badly scanned picture on it that was recognised by precisely nobody as valid proof of anything.

Just one of many, many con tricks pulled by the govt to screw money out of people wanting to make a life for themselves.
(TalkbackStuck making obscene phonecalls since, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 10:12, closed)

They're not making money on that
It probably costs them more, considering how bureacratically inefficient they are.
(Not him., Mon 20 Jul 2009, 13:16, closed)