Why Higher One rocks.. or “the saga of getting a bank account in the UK”
If you’re a student who goes to a Higher One client school, you can open a checking account, have money in it, and be using your MasterCard Debit Card in say 3 to 5 minutes. Now, we were pretty innovative about how we use online databases, etc. to do CIP documentation. So, I didn’t expect to be able to do something similar here in the UK. However, I did expect to be able to go to a branch and get a “current account” (as demand deposit type accounts are called here) in one stop. Also, I wasn’t going in as a customer off the street to Barclays, I was referred to their premier group, by the premier group at bank of america. I was able to work with someone at the branch to fill out all the know your customer forms they needed. I had to give copies of my passport, drivers license, sign about 10 times, and after all that I was told that since I wanted it to be a join account, I had to get the same stuff from Kellee.
Monday - the day we got in (afer I didn’t sleep at all on the flight), I took Kel over the branch and after waiting 15 minutes so we could see the same bank employee (I asked another one quickly to help and it was clear that she wouldn not figure it out quickly). Kellee got everything signed and verified…and …we were told that 5-10 business days from now we would have an account…oh yeah, and for tax planning reasons I’m going to have to go through this again to get accounts for my trust. wow - I hope that this isn’t the speed with which everything move here!
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