Opening a Bank Account

[Bamboo Benny]

I have made a few enquiries into opening a Bank account in and around the Kissimmee area. CitiBank, Bank of America and Wachovia. But all of these banks require you to be in person to open an account. Are there any Banks that allow you to open an account from UK ? I'm not having much luck here !

I want to transfer money for my yearly Florida holiday as the pound is so good against the dollar. Also, is it really that easy to transfer £ to $ by bank transfer or do you have to pay fees etc ??? I might be being a bit naive here but best to get all the facts.

Thanks for any help you can give.

[caroline]

The most cost effective way to transfer money for a holiday is to change your GB£ into US$ travellers cheques and take them with you.

[Newhomebuyer]

The rules over here have changed as well. If you wish to open a bank account here or in the US, you must present yourself at the bank.
I , personally would not go with the travellers cheques idea. If you think that the rate is the best it will be this year then why not go ahead and buy your dollars. Have you already purchased all your theme park tickets and paid up for your holiday. I guess it depends whether you used a UK based travel company or whether you are dealing directly with the States.

[blott]

Have you tried First National Bank of Polk County? http://www.fnbpcbanker.com They are usually quite happy to open a bank account for you even if you're not in the US but be aware that you may need to send/fax them a copy of your passport.

If you want to send money over by wire transfer, there's normally a small charge for this at your UK bank and also to receive the money into a US bank. Unless you're transferring $000s for a home purchase, I'd go with Caroline's idea, which is what we do ourselves in each trip over to top up our US bank account. Make sure that you get US$ travellers' checks though and go to somewhere that doesn't charge any commission.

[Bamboo Benny]

Thanks for the advice folks.

I have an I-130 form in progress and hope to move to the States in the future (10 year wait!...ooouch)however I wanted really to put money away every month and forget about it till either a holiday or when we move.

Could do the travellers cheque suggestion I suppose to take advantage of the high rate. However, experts predict maybe even $2 to the £1 in the future. Do travellers cheques ever expire ???

[blott]

No, they don't expire until you date and sign them on redemption (and then they should be valid for around six months) - we've had some original ones for years which still work!

If you want to salt money away in the US, you could open a savings account instead or as well as a checking account if you wanted.

[Scotborder]

Just a suggestion, if you are not ready to go to Florida to open your US bank account, why don't you open a US dollar account with your UK bank. Some bank here in UK have facilities to provide you a US dollar account, then you can change your pounds to dollars to take advantage of the higher exchange rate and keep it in your UK account until such time you open your US bank account.

[Bamboo Benny]

Thanks for that, I will check with my Bank tomorrow. That sounds good.

It would be a good way of saving whilst taking into account the good rates.

Thanks.

[Emcee]

Another suggestion is and somebody may have thought of this, so sorry in advance. Once you have got your US account open you can send money into it via a scheme called World Pay. I think most British banks do it, certainly HSBC. You are allowed to send upto $3400.00 at any one time and the last time I did it it cost me £9.00 with no charge at the other end. Wire transfers can sometimes be expensive with charges both ends. The World Pay scheme is ideal for taking advantage of the exchange rate. We are starting to use it for our holiday money when we go over and just use our debit/cash card from the US bank, saves so much hassle and no cash to carry around. As another example we went over at Christmas and sent money by World Pay and got $1.72, at the same time got cash and travellers cheques and got $1.66 plus commission charges. I rest my case.

Hope this helps,

Erik

[pwwhitehead]

I you go to citibank.co.uk they allow you to open a uk sterling bank account. The minimum balence is £2000. You can then open a dollar bank account with them allowing you to exchange any pounds you have into dollars. The exchange rais is based on the commercial rate not the tourist rate.

[Bamboo Benny]

OK Erik. Thanks for that. I shall have a look into it.

I enquired with Barclays but the charges for a US dollar account seem quite high, around £10 for every amount you transfer.

Thanks for the Citibank lead. I have sent of an email to them for more info. Cheers guys.

[Tyreabusa]

Out of interest, I bank with Lloyds TSB over here. My manager has told me of an "arrangement" between Lloyds and Wachovia whereby your international money manager contacts his liason at Wachovia. After a few emails going between them, they send you a form for you to fill in all your information to get a bank account open in the States. Now I'm not saying that this will work for everyone, but I have a long standing history with Lloyds and a really good credit rating ( which is all taken into account ). So those of you who bank at Lloyds........good luck !!

Nick

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[Warrior]

Under the patriots act you have to be present in all transactions involving the opening of a new account. You are also required to provide proof of address in the USA and as such may have to provide a Social Security Number.

My suggestion would be to buy $ travellers cheques before you leave the UK, if the rate is not that good when you go bac, keep them for your next trip.

[Bamboo Benny]

Think I will do that. I'm not having much luck with anything else. Thanks for everyone's comments though.