I went on HSBC website last night. If you look at the International Banking section it is quite informative but I needed to ask some questions so I went into HSBC in the City of London today to make enquiries. I had a quick discussion with some lad who said that if you were an HSBC customer of 2 years standing, they would arrange opening an account abroad for you pretty swiftly, especially if you were a Premier Account Holder (This means sack loads of money in their savings account and a salary of £75,00 per annum). IF you were NOT an existing customer an account CANNOT be opened in the UK and you will have to open the account in the country of residence. There is an International Enquiries telephone number you can ring to discuss (this can be found on the website). From the way I understood it - you do not necessarily have to have a regular salary going in if you are willing to invest minimum £5,000 in savings, free debit card transactions and a few other facilities etc. In the website you will see a list of countries - Turkey has a dual taxation agreement with the UK, I think. The only exception to HSBC rules is that you cannot have CREDIT. If one of our financial expert FORUMITES can have a look at the website maybe they could explain it better than I in layman's terms. I would be very interested. I use my UK bank account and extract money in Turkey with my debit card but this raises charges! NATIONWIDE current account does not charge debit card transactions but they want to see £1,000 going into the account every month.
