spirit_of_town_hall Posted September 24, 2002 Report Share Posted September 24, 2002 From European friends i have heard that uk banks are horrific. They didnt need to tell me that i knew. But seriously they say it is very hard to open an account. Apparently in Holland and Belgiuj its very easy. STH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BelgianBoy Posted September 24, 2002 Report Share Posted September 24, 2002 Apparently in Holland and Belgiuj its very easy. STH, Yep, rather easy, bring an ID card and you get an account....... dont know about Belgiuj FYI I opened a B account in 15 minutes flat at the Thai Farmers Bank in august with my passport and got a Viasa debetcard in a week ( not a CC !! ) Cheers ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilli13 Posted September 25, 2002 Report Share Posted September 25, 2002 cheers mate I'll give the nationwide DC another go even I finally got a natwest account & switch card! now I'll just have to wait some 4-5 weeks for webbanking access... gee still remember the few minutes it took me online to get my danish webbanking account ;-) anyways enjoy the danish ;-/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilli13 Posted September 25, 2002 Report Share Posted September 25, 2002 by the way are you saying nationwide are giving you the interbank conversion rate(which can be found e.g. oanda.com) while using the dc/cc abroad? I'll say that's very unlikely as I concider 1.5% to interbank quite reasonable(better than any bkk money changer could do)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 25, 2002 Report Share Posted September 25, 2002 Yes, indeed. I just checked the historical database on oanda. On the 16th of August their average shows 64.37 baht. I received 64.18 baht. On the 28th of August, their interbank rate avg. shows $1.5347. I received $1.5409, slightly better than shown on oanda. Of course, these rates correspond to the £. The rate shown on my statement(I can check it online. Set up in less than a week) is normally better, never worse than the rates you receive for TCs in Thailand. They absorb the Visa charges of 1% for the rest of the world and 0.25% for the EU. Again, ZERO charges with the DC and 0.5% cash withdrawal charge with the CC. The banks exist to churn out profits for their shareholders and need to have growth year upon year regardless. So, they'll squeeze it out of you somehow. Mutual and building societies do not have the same pressures, as they exist 'solely for the benefit of their members'. The British people didn't seem to grasp this when they greedily agreed to most of the building societies conversion to banks, in exchange for a payment of a few thousand pounds. Now they can see the banks simply clawing it back. The Nationwide deal seems too good to be true simply because we are used to the excessive greed of the other institutions. We need to protect what's good about our country and not bow to the excesses of capitalism. Feel better now.............. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilli13 Posted September 25, 2002 Report Share Posted September 25, 2002 guess it's a pretty good deal then so I just pray they'll accept me then! so far I haven't been able to get any CC anywhere, so perhaps I'll go for the nationwide DC... actually only 1 in my 'group' at work have gotten a AM CC for travel expenses as all others have been rejected, so they are stuck with TC's when abroad for work LOL. I'll probably not get the UK AMEX myself anyways in the imediate future as those bloody UK banks don't trust nobody!!! cheers ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 26, 2002 Report Share Posted September 26, 2002 My bit of Danish has a Nationwide account, though, she has been here for many years. She was refused by LV though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilli13 Posted September 27, 2002 Report Share Posted September 27, 2002 I won't even bother with LV then ;-) off to denmark for the weekend... cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 27, 2002 Report Share Posted September 27, 2002 What sort of spirit is that? LV can take your application over the telephone and can give you an answer in minutes. Mine took two minutes. I was surprised, as I only called them to apply because my Danish was rejected. She has a good job in the city. Maybe Nationwide are a better be, especially if you are going to pay your wages into the Flexaccount. (She didn't) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilli13 Posted September 28, 2002 Report Share Posted September 28, 2002 sure I'll pay 'some' wages into the potential 'travel account'. at least the expense claims, but I'll settle with the 'best' one on top of my natwest. actually it seems to run a bit smoother now than anticipated as I'm on a daily basis get new stuff in the mail. like today master gold card, so guess the company backed application did allright! anyways might cancel all of that crap once the nationwide gets setup... thanks for all the advice ;-) anyways any experience with the pure internet banks like intelligent finance, smile, first direct etc.??? (I was denied at IF too!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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