Opening a bank account in the UK had become a little more difficult with banks requiring you to produce documents to verify your identity and residential status which made a lot of foreigners such as students find it difficult to open bank accounts. They ask for international passport, drivers' license or national ID card as proof of identity. They also require you to produce one or two utility bills to as proof of your residence. Some of the bigger banks; those that made £40 billion last year may not even consider your application because they have more stringent requirements. The smaller ones may have less rigid requirements but may charge you a fee every month if you do not maintain a certain minimum in your account.
As if things were not bad enough, HSBC, perhaps the biggest bank in England decided, in essence, to ban poor customers from one of its branches. You can only get face-to-face attention if you are rich otherwise you have to use a machine. To qualify for the rich list, you have to have £50,000 in savings or £200,000 mortgage or £100,000 mortgage with a £75,000 salary. This is just like saying “if you are not rich enough, talk to the machine”.
The fear is this may just be the beginning; a dry run if you will. They could add more branches to the exclusive club. Other banks especially the bigger ones may also decide to create this kind of clubs too. The question now is what do people who live around this branches do if they need to get some help from humans. Most probably go to a branch not offering members only services no matter how far away those branches may be. These people may be elderly pensioners and it could cause them unnecessary hardship.
HSBC calls itself the world's local bank. I am not sure that would be accurate description.
