Best UK bank accounts for recent immigrants?

Hello!

My wife arrived in the UK from Canada on a TIER 5 working visa three months ago.

It was a real pain in the bottom, but we finally got her a Santander basic account. The difficulty was partly in the usual obstacles to immigrants (no UK credit history, limited proof of address) but also general incompetence on behalf of the bank. Phone operators, branch tellers and webpages all told us different things; letters containing PIN codes and verification codes failed to arrive several times and had to be reordered. It took about a month. But we got there eventually.

So I can recommend Santander if you have patience. Their basic account does exist and it does work.

One limitation, however, is that it comes with a rather quaint 1990s-style cash card only. You can withdraw cash from your account in-branch and at ATMs but the card has no debit facility so it's no good for online shopping or buying groceries in the supermarket.

Does anybody know (ideally through first-hand experience) if another UK bank offers a basic account suitable for immigrants but with a debit card?

If anyone else is interested, I Googled around and found that Barclays and the Co-op both offer basic accounts with debit cards.

Barclays Cash Card account: http://www.barclays.co.uk/Otheraccounts ... 2557963900

Co-op Cashminder: http://www.co-operativebank.co.uk/curre ... cashminder

Still be good to know if anyone on the forum has first-hand experience of either.

HSBC has a Passport account for new immigrants. There is a charge for it, but it is tailored for immigrants and I believe that you can open it while still overseas.

secret.simon wrote:HSBC has a Passport account for new immigrants. There is a charge for it, but it is tailored for immigrants and I believe that you can open it while still overseas.

I was trying to avoid the expense of that, but it's certainly worth remembering.

For anyone interested, Barclays have saved the day. They match the basic services offered by Santander, but their card is a useful debit card instead of Santander's rather quaint cash card. Hooray!