After 57 days in the UK I have finally been afforded the privilege of a bank account. Faithful readers will no doubt recall my earlier rant, and I have since found a sympathetic story in The Independent. Though despite the semi-positive trend noted in the article I still had to rely upon a little luck.
For clarification, the difficulty had to do with residency, not citizenship. So, even if I were a citizen of the UK, I would still have difficultly getting a bank account. Fortunately for me, I was able to find a bank that accepted the documentation I already had, namely our leasing agreement for our current flat as 'proof of address' (residency), as well as my job contract with the university. The university branch of the Halifax Bank of Scotland has a deal with the university to allow new staff to open bank accounts there. Till now, I'd been waiting for a utility bill to arrive at our house. The other day I discovered that our first electricity bill won't arrive till early December, so I was happy to discover another plan.
Now I'll be able to get paid, get a mobile phone plan, enroll with City Car Club, and possibly even get a library card, none of which were possible without a debit account. Though in visiting the mobile phone store today, it seems my options are limited until I establish a little more credit history here. But I'll leave that discussion to another day.
Some related articles for curious readers:
No comments:
Post a Comment