# Bank account for uk and us citizen



## vmpl (Aug 27, 2011)

My husband and I want to
Open a joint account . We have been told when applying for spouse visa a joint account is a good thing to show proof of. How do we open a Uk account together before he has a visa to stay here ?


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## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

vmpl said:


> My husband and I want to
> Open a joint account . We have been told when applying for spouse visa a joint account is a good thing to show proof of. How do we open a Uk account together before he has a visa to stay here ?


Basically you can't, but you don't need to have a joint account prior to being together in UK. Separate accounts are fine, and your financial resources are based on your combined amount.


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## vmpl (Aug 27, 2011)

Thankyou Joppa x i was just looking online and found one called cardone banking that says it's ok for
Foreign nationals. I'll call them
Tomorrow and see what they say x


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## 2farapart (Aug 18, 2011)

vmpl said:


> My husband and I want to
> Open a joint account . We have been told when applying for spouse visa a joint account is a good thing to show proof of. How do we open a Uk account together before he has a visa to stay here ?


We did this same thing in both the UK and the US. The US bank (NBT) was actually a breeze. They were happy to email me a single scanned copy of a form to complete, sign and return via email. They issued me a card via my partner. The UK bank was a headache though (HSBC), their security seeming much higher. They were perfectly willing to do it, but only with both of us present in person, and lots and lots of paperwork to complete.

What we did was wait until my partner was visiting from the US. We made an appointment at an HSBC branch and took all the usual identification stuff for my partner (several forms of ID showing her address, signature etc, her passport, her driving license...). There were copious amounts of forms to fill out and it probably took in the region of an hour or more for just two accounts. I had to counter-sign every form my partner signed. The form only allowed for two accounts. Trying to add her to the third and forth account seemed to be beyond the ability of the bank's paperwork. We gave in finally and accepted that at least her name was on our primary current account and a savings account until she was permanently over here.

Practically though, not sure it helped. It proved almost impossible for us to use the other's account from overseas and so the accounts were in name only in reality.


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