My First Bank Account in the UK and My Bad Experience

This aim is to share my personal experience.

 High street banks in the UK require very specific documents such as utility bills, council tax bills, bank statements, and BPR….and you need to book an appointment to open an account.

My Bad Experience

I have a bad experience opening a street bank. 

Most banks allow opening a bank account via online/ apps. 

I download the apps and fill up the documents. Subsequently, I fail to proceed and was required to do a face-to-face appointment in the bank.  I called and waited up to 30minutes to book my appointment yet there was no one to pick up the phone. The staff was working under pressure (just like NHS) due to most of them working from home despite the UK government having mentioned no need to work from home anymore. They are been rude and unorganized ( people who are depositing money in machines need to be queued up by standing outside the bank in a single lane as same as those who are waiting for consultation). They insist on paper documents and have been very impatient when I am inquiring about the correct and possible document to be accepted in my circumstance. The next appointment booking will be in 1.5months time!

I walked away and go to another bank. Without an appointment, I waited for 2hours as the staff was kind to offer help from the beginning. The staff helped me to print out my documents after sending them via email.  Yet, I still can't get my street bank done!  I don't have any utility bills under my name and they don't accept tenancy agreements. 

 

Tips: As a new IMG to the UK, you could face the problem of proof of your residence address. Some people will accept your bank statement in Monzo with a UK address as proof. Then, later you can go to a street bank with it. 

Go for Digital Bank

 My friend introduces me to using Monzo.

Now, I will recommend it to others too.  As I think it is easy, convenient and avoid all the trouble.

We can always open a high street bank after we get settled down.

You can ask your HR whether they accept it as a payment account.

With the Monzo card, I can go cashless in the UK (public transport, grocery shop…), except Marketplace as it uses cash still.

 

How can I apply?

It is very easy. Just use your smartphone and launch the apps. It will take mere minutes and approving your account can take just a couple of hours or less.

Documents need?

• ·       You need a UK address (a card will be posted to you in 2-3days time)
• ·       ID (passport)
• ·       An email address, and
• ·   A UK mobile number

 

Here are the links with my referral code: 

Monzo: https://join.monzo.com/c/wxf6s3w (free to install, you can get £5 and as referral also get £5, then you can start to have your own referral code afterward)

Other options of digital bank: Monese, Starling, Revolut

 

Sending Money to/ from Home Country

Previously I used to travel overseas with a certain amount of cash.

However, when I was traveling for my PLAB2, I brought less cash.

I strongly recommend having a debit card while you travel. As you can avoid bringing a huge amount of cash which could be difficult to carry and to avoid unnecessary trouble of changing the leftover money back to local currency.

In London, you can't use cash for their buses. Nowadays, only cards are accepted.  You can buy an Oyster card online or in a grocery shop. It cost £5 for me to buy in the grocery shop and I need to top up the card. 

I use BigPay at the beginning. It is useful for a Malaysian when traveling abroad.

I found it is cheaper than the money exchange dealers and I can spend according to the amount that I want.

Later, I found Monzo is good to use locally in the UK.

Monzo is an online UK bank. You need to have a UK Local address where there will send you a physical card in 2-3days time after you applied.

You can use Wise to transfer your local money (Ringgit) to the Monzo account (UK account).

 

Here are the links with my referral code: 

BigPay: http://bigpay.link/referrals?referralcode=L8UC7XCD2T (free to install, you can get RM10)

Monzo: https://join.monzo.com/c/wxf6s3w (free to install, you can get £5)

Wise: https://wise.com/invite/ih/peyn5 (free to install, you get the first free transfer up to RM2500)

What countries that I can send using wise? Link

If you have any good tips, please share them in the comments below. 

I hope this helps to give you an idea of my first bank account in the UK. 

Here are some of the Monzo features: 

Accessed on 13/02/2022.

Here is the table of contents for other topics: https://helenngjourney.blogspot.com/2022/02/table-of-contents.html