Utility Bills

It ties you to a specific address if the utilities and electoral roll are in your name.

A bank account may be essential for modern living, but they are certainly not accessible to everyone.

I work with people who have disabilities. We often have to open bank accounts on their behalf- and you should see the difficulties that can cause!

James

Print one off, a decent inkjet printer can do a very good job :)

And get done for fraud, or get a CIFAS warning placed on your file. Great Idea...

For a charge of fraud to stick there needs to be some element of defrauding somebody. Using a self printed document to authenticate an address so that you can get a Bank account and then using that account perfectly normally, defrauds no-one.

but if the alternative is no Bank account, what have you lost?

tim

In message , Alasdair Baxter writes

Other proofs of residency are acceptable.

Thats why other things are acceptable as well.

Vote out the government - they introduced the legislation, not the banks.

Like what, for example? Driving licence -- but what if you don't drive?

I rather suspect that the rules were formulated by the EC and the UK government is only doing as told. However, do the actual words of law specify what is acceptable or is it left to the banks to decide the details?

From :

(Opening a bank account)

----------- By law, bank staff must verify your identity and your address. They cannot use the same document to verify both. You can ask them what documents are acceptable. Common ones are:

Gas, electricity, water or phone bill Council tax bill Driving licence Current passport Known employer's ID card Pension or other social security book Medical card Inland Revenue documentation Insurance certificate Mail order statement

If you do not have the sort of documents the bank accepts, talk to the staff and explain what sort of documents you can produce. Banks have special procedures to deal with such cases, which may involve consulting a more senior person or specialist part of the bank.

-------------

See also: Proving Your Identity

Regards Sunil

IME the interpretation of the rules is very much left to the bank to decide what is acceptable, on pain of a very large fine:

if they get it wrong. IMHO such fines do not do the consumer any good, they just make the banks even more strict for no actual benefit as the sort of person who they are tring to catch will have no difficulty in gaining the required documents (legally or otherwise)

tim

In message , Alasdair Baxter writes

Bank statement, building society statement/pass book, IR tax notice, pension book, state benefit book or letter relating to such, etc.,

There are variations from institution to institution so there must be some degree of interpretation.

"Alasdair Baxter" wrote

Get yourself a *provisional* driving licence! Most people with these are in the same shoes - they don't drive (on their own) either!!

Most banks wont accept a provisional licence. Only a full one.

A potentially good credit score? Any possibility of getting one in the future when you do have a bill?

Why not? It's a perfectly good proof of address.

Ho ho ho. The original complaint was about how difficult it is to open a bank account. If you already have one, you don't need one.

In message , Ronald Raygun writes

Thanks for the Santa Claus impersonation.

The average number of bank/building society accounts per person of population is about 3. Loads of people have more than one account. In fact 67% of people enquiring about the new basic bank account at post offices already had bank accounts.

For some reason it is specifically excluded from the list of acceptable items.

Any idea why?

In message , Ronald Raygun writes

I've been trying to think of a reason, and the only difference I can think of is that to get unprovisionalise a provisional licence you have to show to the examiner that you are the person on the licence. I cant thin of anything else.

I don't doubt any of that, but it's irrelevant to the point at issue.

The original query asserts that obtaining the requisite documentation can be a bit of a challenge, which is problematic given how necessary it appears to be these days to have at least a basic bank account.

Having overcome the initial difficulty, and acquired an account, the need to acquire subsequent ones is now much dimished, but so is the difficulty to obtain subsequent ones, given that the mere fact of having one provides part of the documentation necessary for extra ones.