General Chat

Andysmum ..... it's not easy to open a bank account for minors over here!

We sent money when our first great niece was born, saying use it to open a bank account for her. Baby was by then about 4 days old.

Parents had to contact Social Services Canada, and set up a Social Insurance Number for the baby .... that's needed for when you start work!

It took about 2 months to get it all correct, and the bank account could be opened.

That happened for each of the next 5 greats to be born!

It's worked out well for all of them, but a mess to start with!

I got the idea for that when a close friend gave us money when my daughter was born .......... but all he did was open the account himself at his bank, then gave me the book (!!!), I took it into our bank (different one), and the account was simply transferred to our bank in my name. Later we added "in trust for (daughter)". We transferred the money in it over to her when she married, and that account then became my savings account ....... that was the simplest method by then!

Much simpler then!

Opening new accounts these days is a nightmare, but one useful tip - if you have children, make sure you open an account for them before they reach 18. As minors, they are not expected to have any of the things adults have and parents can open the account with no problem.

However, once they reach 18, even if they are still living at home, they are suddenly expected to be paying council tax, rent or a mortgage, and various other things I can't remember. It took my friend several months to persuade her bank to open an account for her 19-year old son, who had just started his first job, needed an account for his pay each month, but was still living with his parents.

I had a problem with my bank a while ago and needed to go there to there to speak to the manager, which I did and all is good now, I've only been with them since 1987.

They don’t make things easy. We have an instant access saver account along side our main current account. The savings rate was only for a year, so it is going to revert to pitiful interest, so we needed to open a new one with a higher rate at the same bank. Even though they already have all of our info, we had to fill everything in as if we were new customers, so they could check our identity. The questions were as clear as mud, so it took me about five goes to realise what they were asking :-(
I managed eventually and moved a trial £10 into it, just to make sure I had got it right. I gave up after that, so I still need to move the money from the old account into the new one

One of my cards needed to be renewed so I did all the confirming etc, all was correct so I pressed go and they said this and that were wrong, they weren't, after about 20 minutes I said something unrepeatable saying where they might like to place said card, sorted now thank goodness.
It makes you want to throw the whole house up the chimney. :-D