This thread is to assist those that want a fully functioning credit type account, without the credit scoring/declines that usually follow suit to people that are in debt.

We aim to source and notify you of all suitable products that is relevant to you, as a debtor, to allow you the opportunity to get back onto the credit ladder. The following account has been tried and tested and verified as genuine - with no credit check (so long as you select the correct account type).

Ok, so what is this bank and how do you get yourself a full account, with chequebook?

It's simple - go here: ---> Bank of Baroda » Retail Banking » Deposit Products » Savings AccountsSee the perks here:

• Simplest deposit option for hassle free operation
• Easy to understand Terms and Conditions. No hidden costs or fine prints
• Account can be opened with a minimum balance of GBP 100
• Account can be opened in GBP, USD and Euro currencies
• Interest is paid every six month - 1st June and 1st December
• Your deposits are guaranteed under FSCS
• Operations from any of our nine branches in UK
• Cheque and Cash deposit facility at all Natwest branches in UK
• Free remittance facility in Indian Rupees to Bank of Baroda branches
• Free cheque book facility
• Free Visa Classic debit card and add-on cards
• Facility to view account balance & transactions over Internet
• Facility to set-up Standing Instructions for remittance and transfer of funds
• Facility available to open joint accounts
• Facility available to mark mandate
• Provision to forward paper based statements every month / six months even if there are no transactions

Ok, so you'll need to know a few things first.

1. This account needs to remain with £100 balance otherwise you are charged for things, so it can be expensive but so long as you leave £100 credit at all times then it is free to spend using cheque and/or your debit card and free to BACS a credit into the account. If you use Natwest branches and expect a whole host of other features then the charging to this account may outweigh the positives.
2. The account is NOT credit scored, they use GB Group - Identify Customer Records to identity check you
3. Here are the charges relative to the savings account ---> Bank of Baroda Service Charges

So, as you can see from the above - a regular saver can now have a full bank account.....

There are only 10 UK branches BUT you can pay in etc at NatWest branches if you want (fee payable I believe). You do get a full debit card and you get a chequebook. You can also, after holding the account for at least 6 months, apply for their credit card which is given preference to existing accounts - apply using the following form: [ATTACH]1283[/ATTACH]

You also need to open it via post as detailed here:

(1) Identity Proof
(any of the following documents)

• Passport
• Full UK driving license with photograph
• Govt. Employees photo ID card

(2) Latest Address Proof
(any of the following documents) - Not earlier than three months period

• Utility bill viz. Gas, Electricity, Telephone (Land Line), Water Council Tax Notice/Bill
• Rental Agreement with Land Lord
• Latest UK Bank statement

(3) Additional Document

• Proof of income, if requested
• R-85 declaration, if exemption is requested from UK tax on Interest income
• Telecommunication Mandate, if the instructions are to be accepted on the fax message
• Any other document as deemed necessary by the bank official

That's it - apply for this and you'll be able to look and feel like a regular person using cheques and a full visa debit card.

Point of caution, DO NOT apply for their current account as it is a load-bearing account (basically you pay for each transaction) - thus stick to the savings account, it offers the same facilities but it is free!

Any queries, give me a shout - I have spoken to their head office and had all the above confirmed, they say upon receipt of the forms they will ring you within 48 hours and discuss the account - they have your best business interests at heart and do not hassle you.

Their card, looks like this:
[ATTACH]1284[/ATTACH]

Best of luck, and enjoy :beer


* If anyone applies please post details below.......

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

Forgot to mention, DO NOT apply for their credit card for at least 6 months of using their savings account as a main account. Obviously it means forgoing Direct Debits (if they do charge - this is unconfirmed by me) - however you can pay cash and/or use cheques.

It is possible to run as a main account however you may get charges so please be warned - BUT it is handy to set-up just to get yourself the facility of a full on debit card, a cheque book and a credit card.

Credit cards vary from £500 to £15k limits.

best of luck everyone :clap :clap

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

Shameless bump to get this back to the top so it gets read more! :beer

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

I will have a proper look at this - Is money deposited covered, as with high dtreet banks, if the bank goes belly up?

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

MattyA;103834I will have a proper look at this - Is money deposited covered, as with high dtreet banks, if the bank goes belly up?

Yep, as far as I know....

Its a normal bank :lol

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

Should be up to £250,000 as the limit was raised

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

The limit is £85,000 for an individual.

£170,000 for a joint account.

Safe savings advice: Compensation rules | This is Money

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

Never-In-Doubt;92178

It is possible to run as a main account however you may get charges so please be warned - BUT it is handy to set-up just to get yourself the facility of a full on debit card, a cheque book and a credit card.

Credit cards vary from £500 to £15k limits.

best of luck everyone :clap :clap

Slow response to your useful tip-off due to time spent on Google trying to source Baroda (I must have been off school that day and missed a vital geography lesson). If they've got more than 3,500 branches in India they must be getting something right. Only a few here in Soutthal, Wembley, Whitechapel and Burmingham - so hope they don't smell a rat when we all apply with obvious Anglo-Saxon names.

Do you know whether they report or file customer performance to Exquifax, Experian and Call Credit? Savings accounts are not normally on the CRAs.

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

MattyA;103834I will have a proper look at this - Is money deposited covered, as with high dtreet banks, if the bank goes belly up?

Thanks for the answers peeps - I know it is a mad question from someone in my position , but Niddy knows the reason why I ask.

Matty

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

It is now eighteen months since anyone posted to this thread – has anyone attempted to open this account, and, if so, what happened?

To answer MattyA's question – it does say on the Savings Account page that “Your deposits are guaranteed under FSCS”.

If no-one has had any problems with it, then I might just volunteer to be the site guinea pig. The only problem I see is the part where it wants an employer name – as we all know, banks hate the self-employed more than they hate Bonnie and Clyde. From the point of view of helping other people on the site, there is also the issue that many who would need these facilities have either lost jobs or had a business fail, and there is no place on the form for those claiming benefits. It looks as though the unemployed are ineligible.

If I do try to get this opened, I'll be back to post with a full breakdown of what happened.

SH

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

I've now sent an email to someone at the Bank of Baroda, just asking for clarification on a few points.

I'll wait to see what, if anything, comes back, and then I'll take it from there.

SH

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

A further update on this situation -

Yesterday, I received a reply to my email, from the manager of one of the branches of the Bank of Baroda. Even though his command of English obviously isn't great, he still took the trouble to reply to every question I asked, and the reply was received within one business day. I find that highly impressive.

Here are some important points I have managed to clarify -

1) Pensioners, the unemployed, and other people without an actual employer are not unable to open the account. It will be more difficult to fill out the form, but it is still possible. The option 'Other' will need to be chosen at the start, but the biggest problem will be filling in the part which says 'Employers details'. The reply simply said “Details about their status i.e. unemployed or pensioner should be mentioned in the employers details”, so presumably there is a way to override the need for the details of an actual business.

2) The “correspondence address” which is asked for is not a problem. In the vast majority of cases, it will be the same as the applicant's own address.

3) It is preferred that customers open the account in branch, and bring in documents to support the application at the time. This won't be great news to people who live in Scotland or remote areas of England or Wales, but there are ten branches which you can use. The London branches are in the City Road just south of Old Street station (I know the area well), Aldgate East (well, it is Whitechapel really, but as Aldgate is in the City I suppose it sounds better), Southall, Wembley, Kenton and Tooting. The others are in Ilford, Birmingham, Leicester and Manchester. The Manchester branch at least makes the project realistic for those in the north of England.

Niddy stated above that you could submit the form by post, and then they would telephone you within 48 hours. I didn't enquire further into that possibility, but it may be something to consider if you do live in an extremely remote area.

4) This one is important – Niddy stated above that he believed you would be charged for depositing money into the account if you used NatWest branches. According to the manager who replied to my email, you would not be charged any extra for this. This would mean that you would only have to travel to a branch once to get the account open, and from that moment on you could pay money in through NatWest branches in your own local area.

5) Finally, and somewhat irrelevantly to most on here I am sure, you are able to open this account in GBP, USD or EUR, and, you are allowed to have more than one account. This is, however, only after “proper justification”. This would be exceptionally useful to affiliate marketers who are members of networks such as Market Health or Clickbank, which pay out in US dollar cheques (“checks”). The transaction charges at the regular banks to have cheques converted to local currency are severe, and there are also significant time delays. This would allow people to sidestep this difficulty, by paying US dollar cheques directly into an account denominated in that currency.

Having an EUR account may also be useful to people who have connections within the EU, or who travel extensively. I am not in that category, so I have not carried out any extensive research into it. I couldn't tell you, for example, whether the debit card which comes with the account could be used in other EU countries, although I see no reason why it couldn't be.

So, everything seems to be in order, and I will now attempt to open this account. It may not be until the end of the month, because I want to schedule it in for when I am in London on other business. I still have to go through the actual opening process before I can provide any meaningful feedback, but so far it all seems viable.

SH

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

I am writing this post on my cell phone, sitting on a bench in St James's Park, having spent the morning in Whitechapel attempting to open this bank account. So far, everything appears to have gone to plan. I will make a more detailed post when l am back on the PC tonight.

Obviously, l will only know for sure what has happened when (and if) the documents start arriving.

SH

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

Just seen this - well done SH - looking forward to your update :beer

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

ScabHunter;310295I am writing this post on my cell phone, sitting on a bench in St James's Park, having spent the morning in Whitechapel attempting to open this bank account. So far, everything appears to have gone to plan. I will make a more detailed post when l am back on the PC tonight.

Obviously, l will only know for sure what has happened when (and if) the documents start arriving.

SH

Weird - I just posted and so did you at the same time :-# :-#

Can't wait to see what happens matey :)

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

planB;103985Do you know whether they report or file customer performance to Exquifax, Experian and Call Credit? Savings accounts are not normally on the CRAs.

Sorry for the delay (missed your post) - They do not report to CRA's, no. :)

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

Never-In-Doubt;310301Sorry for the delay (missed your post) - They do not report to CRA's, no. :)

Delay? My post was nearly nine months ago. I could have had a baby in that time :lol:lol

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

planB;310309Delay? My post was nearly nine months ago. I could have had a baby in that time :lol:lol

ahem, sorry - that is rather bad isn't it :lol

* I mean the delay not you having a baby :$

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

OK, here's a breakdown of my day in London which has hopefully resulted in me obtaining a new savings account.

The Aldgate branch is easy enough to find, on Commercial Road, Whitechapel, and is easy to reach by bus. I used a No. 15 from Regent Street. You could also just get the Underground to Aldgate East as the branch is well within walking distance.

When I entered the branch this morning, at around 10am, there was no-one else in the customer area, just two Indian gentlemen behind the protective glass which is typically found in banks. I told one of them that I wanted to open a savings account, and he pushed the form through the trough underneath the window.

Now, have you ever seen a branch of a bank with no pens in it? If not, visit this one! Oh, dear. Problem number one. I had to take the form into the nearby Ladbrokes betting office and fill it in there, making it look as though I was filling out betting slips! Never mind, form filled in, problem solved. I took it back to the branch, and gave it to the same teller who had given it to me.

I was immediately asked for identity documents, which I had obviously made sure to take with me. The passport and proof of address were photocopied, and passed without incident. The only potential difficulty was the need to provide an employer's address, but that was overcome in exactly the way the manager had told me in his email. A self-employed can just put their own address, and an unemployed person would simply write 'unemployed' in the first line. Neither of these states are a barrier to getting the savings account opened.

After the identity documents had been processed, I waited for the interview which takes place in an office behind the counters. The important point to make about this is that the bank officials are not trying to catch you out or find a reason to reject the application. As long as you can pass the identity check, they want you to have the account, and the questions are just to try to establish a relatively regular usage pattern for monitoring purposes. I didn't find any of the questions unreasonable or difficult to answer.

I don't live in London – I live around 70 miles away. They did ask about that, but when I told them I was a regular visitor that was accepted readily enough. I don't look or sound Indian and I don't have an Indian name (although I do share a birthday with Mohandas K. Gandhi, but that wasn't mentioned!), so that is not an issue. They told me I would get the cheque book and the debit card, so as long as that happens it will prove that credit scoring is not a factor either.

I can also confirm that it is possible to credit the account at NatWest branches without being charged, although apparently that is not automatic. It should be, but it seems that there are incidents of NatWest branches not being familiar with the Bank Of Baroda, and attempting to charge people for deposits. I was told that if you are going to be depositing money regularly at one branch, it is best to get it arranged in advance, and then there will be no problem.

I paid in £150 to get the account opened (£100 minimum), so it is now just a case of waiting for the paperwork and the card and cheque book to come through the post. I don't anticipate any problems, but I'll update the thread with any further developments.

So far, so good.

SH

PS What an amazing coincidence it is that both Niddy and myself should post at exactly the same time earlier today. When I was sitting on the park bench and saw his post come in, I assumed it was a direct response to the one I had just made. Obviously not!

PPS PlanB is useless at arithmetic. 17th August 2011 to 30th April 2013 is a lot longer than nine months, and I don't think many of the ladies would relish a pregnancy which lasted for that length of time!

Re: Savings Account with ChequeBook & Debit Card

Thanks SH - thorough feedback, just what we like.

Hoping my wee plan also works, and debtors can get a full debit card with cheque book :luck :luck