Whenever I have the misfortune to deal with British banks I am inevitably impressed by their lack of speed when dealing with customer requests. The latest example: we decided to close our joint UK bank account, since we don’t actually need it, and it just tied up money keeping the account in credit. (I won’t name the bank to protect the guilty). I wrote to them on 30th June requesting them to close the account and transfer the balance to our German bank using SWIFT.
On 23rd July (over three weeks later and after three phone calls to the branch asking why nothing was happening) they wrote back to tell me that to close the account and transfer funds abroad I would need to provide a certified copy of both Ruth’s and my passports with a specific text that the official doing the certification had to include on the copy.
We sent the copies back the day the letter arrived, on 26th July, and last Friday (30th July) I noticed that the online internet access to the account had been deactivated (a good sign). Today (2nd August) at 8:30 this morning, the passport copies arrived back in the post. The balance arrived on our German account this evening.
Total time to process: 33 days.
I don’t think, by the way, think that this is atypical. We have had several similar experiences with another of the British “Big Four” banks when we were administering my mother’s affairs in the last four or five years before she passed away.
