I was looking for the banging head against brick wall emoji but couldn’t find it!
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I have been with Yorkshire bank for more than 40 years and have had no problems with them, but always live in fear of them doing a Barclays on me, but have not found a back-up solution yet.
But one thing has set me thinking. I had a Lloyds account before that and took out what was called an Access credit card account. Although they know where I am and are happy with that, they have always refused to open an ordinary account with me.
Not sure how it would work but I wonder if I could make payments to the account to leave it permanently in credit, instead of just clearing the balance before the due date each month. 
BTW @hairbear that bloody head banger has given me a headache for all the time I have been typing and editing this post. Goodbye. 
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Just realised that it would be necessary for my pension providors to agree to make the payments to a credit card, rather than a bank account. Not sure that they would.
Not sure that Torfex would receive money for transfers from a credit card either.
Wise
Uk account number available, move it on from there to where you like.
Overpaying into a credit card is a no-no - it’s a big red flag to many providers, could draw attention to your account and attention could result in it getting closed for a variety of reasons (not necessarily just what triggered the flag) if flagged for review etc.
Both leaving a credit balance, or doing things like spending up to your credit limit, paying if off while still within the month and then spending again. Lots of automated jobs run by financial providers will flag up things like this and high risk there are negative consequences.
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I won’t do it then. 
Don’t want to rock any boats. 
As to early paying, only by 3 days, thus on the 12th of every month before the 15th deadline.
This came about because one New Year the bill didn’t arrive 'till too late and they ‘fined’ me £20. I explained and they gave it back to me, but I have never let it happen again.
The amounts are small as I only use it for Kindle content purposes, and have never been anywhere near the £8,500 limit.
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I opened a current account at my local UK Santander branch explaining that I was moving to France full time in mid 2025 and needed a UK current account which allowed for no UK address, hence as non-UK resident. Also that I would be moving my account from Barclays to Santander nearer the time of selling my UK home. Santander told me that that was fine as I was opening now whilst UK resident; I would not have been allowed to open a Santander account if I had already made the move to France.
The only blip is that I have a very useful euro account along with my GBP account at Barclays but Santander do not offer Euro accounts in the UK, I told Santander that I would have to keep my Barclays accounts open for now because I use the Euro account and I am pretty sure that if I closed the Barclays GBP moving everything over to Santander they would insist on closing the Euro account at that point.
So far, so good.
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Hi Nic,
I have been with Barclays for about twenty years. For the last eighteen months or so they have been telling me that I must close my account as I am no longer a UK resident. They have subsequently granted me several ‘extensions’ but the end is now nigh and I likewise cast around for an alternative. I could have used a family address of course but having come this far in life I prefer to be ‘above board’ nowadays.
I considered Wise or Revolut but having already a perfectly satisfactory relationship with Currencies Direct I could see little point.
I tried First Direct and Santander with no luck and then turned to HSBC. My account was approved within about four or five days having just provided a passport copy, proof of residence in France and the matching selfie photo. All done on line in about twenty minutes . .no hassle.
I now await ny account number and bank card etc which they advise will be with me within a couple of weeks.
This is up to the date info…I only did it last week.
Good luck.
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I opened an HSBC account just over a year ago. It was a long drawn out affair. One of the sticking points was getting Barclays to send me six months of bank statements as HSBC wanted them with my French address on them and they had to be originals not printed out online statements. Barclays sent them twice and twice I didn’t receive them. The third time they arrived quite quickly and I was interested to see that they had been sent from Barclays in the Channel Islands and it made me wonder if there was a problem with post from the U.K. to France. I then discovered that they were only going to allow me to have a basic account not a current account and that savings accounts were out of the question. A game of email ping pong then took place where I would ask yet again if I could have a current account and a savings account explained why I needed them and they always replied, no. That was until I phoned them for some reason and asked the person on the phone if I could have a current account. She said that I already had one. I said no it’s a basic account and she assured me that it was a current account. I asked if I could open a savings account and she not only said yes but did it there and then. A week or so later I was listening to Martin Lewis on BBC 4’s Money Box and he was saying about a really good high interest savings account that had to be applied for online and was only open to current HSBC customers so I applied for one of those too. After months of uncertainty everything fell into place. I had been a Barclay’s customer for 50 years but they offered no support whatsoever.
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Barclays has often been reported to give people 2 months notice to close accounts as soon as they move to F.
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You don;t even have to leave the country - in 2003 they shut my personal account down as soon as I mentioned I was moving to Turks & Caicos, even though I still had the account associated with a UK address.
Complete set of twunts, all UK banks. Hence why I have a Flex account with Nationwide Building Society.
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If only you could take them out after you leave the country. Make sure you hang on to it.
Don’t worry I will!
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Hi Karen,
What sort of evidence do you think would be required?
And do you mean it will be required at the receiving end, rather than the exiting account?
Thanks
Good to know they gave you extensions as opposed to just closing your account. Thats something at least
If you are a Barclays customer and are moving to the EU it’s really worth going into a bank like HSBC and opening an account while you are still a U.K. resident.
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That is the important bit. I have heard that Nationwide are a good bet too, but not sure if they operate the same way as a bank though. But they won’t open accounts once you live abroad.
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Receiving end. So have ready, payslips to prove origin if it’s salary, pension info if pension (though often that type of originator of a payment into your account, it’s clear what type of outfit is providing you with funds).If funds paid for odd work projects keep records of who paid you and what for, if you sell some personal property keep records if the money is going to your bank acct etc Be aware anything a bank sees eg in your account or docs or info you give them is surely handed to government or any authority and it’s very hard to get it erased as they will claim their rights trump your Data Protection Rights.
Banks’ excuse for this is Anti Money Laundering regulations that require them to kmow the origin of funds over a cetain amount (in the UK it’s £10 000) but banks often demand intrusive info at much, much lower levels.
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If all you need is a standard UK current account into which (say) a pension or other income can be made, and that will handle direct debits and payments out via a VISA debit card, then it’s a perfectly viable alternative to a traditional bank. I’ve had my account with them for 20+ years.
They offer savings accounts, overdrafts and personal loans, though these may not be available to non UK residents, I’m not sure.
I’m not sure what else you would want from a bank account?
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All I wanted was an account where my pension income could be paid into and a savings account to put the money to earn a bit if interest before the time came when I wanted to change it into Euros. I presume a building society account would allow you to send money to Wise or whatever so it would have been as good for me as a bank account. The only trouble is the only place I found that would open an account for an EU resident was HSBC. I have to say they have been no trouble whatsoever.
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