Wouldn't that be covered under deposit insurance?

He'll get the money back. There's no doubt about that. The stress is more about not knowing how long it will take nor whatever complications may arise while this is all getting sorted. Also Tesco Bank's (understandably) busy customer services aren't helping peoples stress levels either.

In terms of your first $100k insured in US bank via FDIC (above that you have to have personal insurance which is very expensive), it might take even 15 years to recover your funds, depending on complexity of claims and number of different instruments that bank has offered to its clients.

For example, there are still open and active claims in case of NextBank that has been shut down in 2002, and had some updates on status done in early 2015, some 13 years later [1]

Personally I suggest keeping 70% of your financial assets in cash in safe at home, preferably split into 20% in low-volume silver coins (80% silver) and 20% in foreign currency (EUR) and the rest in USD.

[1] https://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html

Seriously? You'd suggest one keeps 70% of their liquid asset in _cash_ at home?

Yes, if you're living during the Great Depression perhaps but your suggest is ludicrous. Maybe a few percentage points in crypto and cash, but most of it should be in your bank/investment accounts.

Bank and investment accounts will yeld you single-digit points per year and in most cases - unless you have few MM, the cost of your bank account will be more than what you earn.

Meanwhile banks wage war on cash. Its harder and harder to withdraw your own money. Here, try and show up at your bank say you need $150,000. They tell you to come back in few days, and in some cases they will ask you to fill out the form and explain yourself why you want to withdraw your own money.

If you do not live in a reasonably safe neighborhood, plus do not owe an alarm system, plus do not owe a safe, plus do not awe a firearm, then yes the bank is your best friend. Other than that no reason to keep some federal paper at someone's else possession at their disposal for a mere 0.5% per year. You don't gain anything and in some cases, you might lose some or all of it (yes extreme scenarios but always)

Here few articles to continue...

http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/29/bank-refuses-to-give-custo...

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/feds-banks-inform-law-enfor...

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-25861717

and here this one quick very informative read: http://www.rd.com/advice/saving-money/secrets-bank-teller-wo...

ps. in all fairness I would say keep 70% in gold or silver, but over the years this commodity has been shifted between the countries in such huge quantity (government buy/sell-outs), that the price is dictate by which country has specific political system and how much PM they owe, rather than true market price. Unless you can predict you won't need to turn your PM into cash within next 5-10 years, which is hard calculation for anyone these days.

FDIC is now $250K PER bank. You just have multiple accounts across a few banks until your wealth is so much that that becomes unmanageable and then you just hand it over to the Berkshire Hathaways of the world.

Tesco is licensed in the UK, and so is covered by FSCS [1] (similar to US FDIC) up to £75k.

It's not so relevant here, but in the case that the bank became insolvent (very unlikely in this case), FSCS aims to pay out within 7 days, and will pay all claims within 20 days.

[1] http://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/

Should I insure that 70% somehow?

Or maybe invest in some extra firepower?

Tesco is a bank for effectively the working poor, young and migrant workers that cannot open an account at a normal highstreet banks.

These are people who may have to pay rent more than once a month, have direct debits for bills and more likely than not not have an overdraft over 100£ if at all.

If your bills bounce you will end up with fines, and even a lower credit score than the one which prompted you to open an account with Tesco in the first place.

I came to the UK in June this year. Both me and my wife moved because of the job. We are from another EU country.

What's interesting is that I signed us up for Tesco bank account but we were both rejected. Probably because we didn't have any history in UK yet but it still kind of sucked - now I am glad they rejected us. Ultimately the next day we went to red and blue US bank on the high street and got it all sorted within half an hour. We showed them contracts, documents and bills to our names (real estate agency through which we rent already sorted that out for us before we came) and we were done. Got our cards made at the spot as well.

So it was kind of the opposite for us. We could't get the bank account with Tesco because of their "security check" but could at the high street bank.

Luckily EU regulation now requires most banks to open a (basic) bank account. Just need an ID and a proof of address.

Some banks even allow opening the bank account over the internet if you are a EU resident.

(I know your pain though, opened a UK bank account a year ago, from the EU as well. The most difficult thing for me was actually the proof of address. Metro Bank required 2 plus 2 proofs of ID, a different bank was fine with just one proof of identity and even googled my post code when I forgot a letter :) )

> The most difficult thing for me was actually the proof of address.

You don't need to prove a UK address, just an address. Depending on the bank, you can open a UK bank account with an overseas address, and change it after you move.

If you haven't planned ahead, then anecdotally Barclays will open an account in branch with only a passport.

I wrote what I-hope-is-the-most-comprehensive StackExchange answer about this, just in case anyone else is battling:

http://expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/85/how-to-ope...

UK banks will also tend to be a lot easier to deal with if your employer is willing to write a letter and/or call their business banking contact to arrange for it.

That's how I got my first UK account.

Same thing, tho when I brought the letter they were meh about it said that the letter head did not look real enough....

I told them to sod off and to look up the company in the company house.

Passport Accounts in the UK are pretty limited with what you can do with them, so I don't advise opening one up front if you planning to immigrate.

Just ask your employer for a cash advance and either use cash for the first 2-4 weeks or use your debit/credit card from your previous country of residence.

When I relocated initially I've arranged that the employer will cover the hotel upto 6 weeks, provide everything needed for a bank account, provide/cover the accountant needed to sort any tax liabilities when moving funds, cover the deposit for the first rental and the agent fees.

If you are hired by a large corp which does relocation all the time they'll have a standard and even a better package, if they company doesn't do relocation on a regular basis make sure all your sides are covered.

Otherwise you can land in a limbo state where you need a bank account to rent a flat, and you need an address (a hotel won't do) to open a bank account (they ask for a utility bill).

The UK seems to have pretty stringent "know your customer" regulation. Or maybe the banks are copper-bottoming the regulation.

UK financial policies are very weird, and in some cases I'd argue they go against the right for freedom of movement as granted by EU. I guess that doesn't mean much with Brexit, but still...

I've been working in a variety of EU countries, with no issues at all. In Denmark, I was even able to secure a mortgage within my second week in the country.

I always work for very reputable employers, with long-term contracts. And I have some savings. Well, here in the UK I have had enormous trouble to lease a £100 / month car after 2 years in the country because I did not reach 3 years of credit history.

Most of the heuristics they use are a joke. And illegal. If you have a chat with the Financial Ombudsman, he can probably sort you out.

Few months ago I was denied a 10£/month mobile contract (SIM-only) from Carphone Warehouse because of inexistent issues with my credit score.

I escalated this to the Ombudsman, just to piss them off for the poor treatment... magically they offered me a SIM and an (half-)apology.

I got denied an upgrade by O2 because Equifax doesn't like the fact that I am not registered to vote and I make a 6 figure salary in the UK. I asked why the hell can't I upgrade after I had no problems getting the phone on contract a year ago, got a stupid reply ordered an iPhone 7 from the Apple store and moved to EE. I called Equifax to complain and they told me to send a letter of correction, I told them Amex gave me a credit limit higher than the average take home salary in the UK and they can sod off, I can't believe I've wasted 15 GBP on that fucking report.

The UK rules are a side effect of a system where there is no national ID number that is considered acceptable for identification purposes, and no national register of where people live, which makes it very easy for people to run away from debts etc..

The various id requirements and 3-year credit history expectation are basically workarounds for this.

Yet a utility bill is a valid form of ID in this country, something you can pick up from the trash....

A recent utility bill is only part of a package of documentation that is valid ID.

I think you're talking about Metro bank? I know they're literally on the high street but they're meant to be a bit more innovative/useful when you actually go into a branch.

I normally use the phrase 'High Street bank' to mean those that have a branch on most high streets and range from unhelpful to really unhelpful. That's useful to know that Metro bank are living up to a different reputation.

Note that Metro Bank is a British bank, though there is an American bank with the same name and the better Internet domain.

As far as I know, they're not related.

Although the founder of Metro Bank, Vernon Hill is also the CEO of an American bank - Commerce Bancorp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Bancorp

Right, but until that insurance pays out you're maybe faced with a bill you cannot pay in the meantime.

One would hope Tesco would cover any costs incurred by customers that are a direct result of this. I know banks in the past have cancelled non-arranged overdraft fees when they've screwed up, but that's easier to do as it's cancelling a charge rather than actually paying money out.

One would hope, but again time is a factor. I've had a weird "I'll be OK soon but for now I'm in trouble" situation before with Bank of Scotland back when I was a student. BOS randomly decided overnight that instead of having an agreed-upon student overdraft limit of GBP 2000 I had none whatsoever and needed to start paying them the full balance immediately. Eventually this was resolved, but for four days I was unable to pay rent or buy food. I was extremely lucky I had friends/family I could rely on in the meantime and that it was resolved so quickly, others may not be so lucky.

I am astonished how many people in this discussion are completely unaware of the idea that some people aren't as lucky as us and work paycheque-to-paycheque. I know HN/SV is a bubble, but surely we're not so out of touch with reality...

I had a very similar experience with BOS back in the early '90s.

And you're spot on - there are so many people juggling these financial balls that one slip up can cause issues for years.

I'm sure the creditors would be lenient if you can prove this incident complicated things for you.

Can't tell if this is sarcasm.

Then again, maybe I am overly cynical. UK utilities at least do seem to have a more positive approach towards people struggling to pay than other countries.

Aye, it's one of the (very) few good things you can say about them (generally).

To some degree you're right - if you've got a landlord you need to pay or a utilities provider (assuming you're not horrendously behind already) then sure, but it'd depend on the creditor. I suspect these lads wouldn't be particularly sympathetic, for example: https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/2015/11/24/warning-of-loa...

I'm wondering why the individual the amounts were so (relatively speaking) small? Perhaps some strategy to avoid tripping warning systems.

Do you know if the the £800 was all there was in that particular account?

Most banks have a limit on transfers, but everything under £1000 should work without triggering any warning

An interview with Tesco exec on Radio 4 this morning suggested something like this was going on. Obvs they don't say what their detection rules are. Which makes you wonder how the attackers gamed them (inside info, or reverse engineering after compromising many accounts?)

Honestly based on the average amount in a checking account at a bank like this they probably could've drained the entire balance without triggering any limits.