Moving to Edinburgh

There is an onus on private landlords to ensure their tenants are not living in the UK illegally but with your passport that's no problem. The opening of an account with a UK bank depends very much on the bank. In my experience you need an international group which understand the needs of people like yourself and I have banked for twenty years with HSBC for this reason. They have two branches in Edinburgh, Hanover Street which has a counter and Princes Street which does not - important if you need to change cash! Ideally you would have an overseas account with HSBC and the process is simple.

Bear in mind also that Edinburgh has been a cosmopolitan city for centuries and understands the benefit of looking after foreign visitors. It is an annual occurance atht a queue of overseas students arrives in Edinburgh to attend university and they all manage to open accounts.

My advice is to pick three or four large banks on the web and email their Edinburgh branches to disocver how they will deal with you.