Move Halifax a/c to UK?

I'm planning a move to the UK pretty soon, for an offer of permanent employment.

Since I won't have a credit history over there, how long before I can get a UK debit or credit card?

Since I'm a Halifax custumer here, can they convert my Irish current a/c and Visa card to UK accounts? Or, can Halifax UK take my credit history from Halifax IRL into consideration for overdraft, cc apps etc?

You will be able to get a halifax visa debit card when you open a current account. You can do this as soon as you arrive in the UK, if you have wages or any other income going into your account then will give you a £300 free overdraft no problem.

The credit card, bill pay phone anything like will soley go on your credit rating over there. Doesn't matter how good of a customer you were over here it wont help getting credit from the uk.

Be careful when you are applying, even opening a current account is counted as apply for credit, even if you dont want the overdraft, 3 or more of these ( within 6 months ) makes a huge dent in your credit score.

Register yourself on the electrol roll straight away, it's can be very hard to get any sort of credit without this.

If you need your credit card i would keep your irish one untill you do get approved.

I started from scratch in the uk and made the mistake of opening a couple of account not realising this would lower my score. It took me 6 months before i got a credit card. I was with another bank that refused me before i moved to halifax. I only had an account with them for 1 month and they gave me a credit card, but i did have 6 months history in the country by then.

@samanthajane

I don't have a particular loyalty to Halifax -- especially if they are going to ignore my Irish history with them.

I always thought their Visa debit was very poor substitute for Laser/Maestro, in Ireland at least.

Thanks for the electoral roll tip -- I wouldn't have thought of this in a million years.
Is it a straight forward procedure?

No bill phone for 6 months either I guess??

Yes all you have to do is go into the local council and fill out a form. Or they will post one out to you. It has to be filled in by the 10th of any month to be on the live electrol roll the following month. They automatically get sent out on all address for people to fill in around sept/oct time. But you wont want to wait untill then.

You could ask the manager to write a letter to the other bank manager it might help. It didn't with me when i first opened an account with natwest.

You can get a bill phone but they will ask for a deposit from you 100%. Even if you were with vodafone or 02 over here it makes no difference over there. Although the same name they are different companies. I was with 02 for 7 years, perfect history payment, didn't make the slightest bit of difference.

EDIT, over in UK it would be better to get the visa debit instead of the Maestro if you intent to make purchase's online that are not within the uk. For example i wanted to book a flight over to ireland with airlingus and back with ryanair, ryanair would not except my maestro card for a flight departing outside the uk. Also a lot of places in ireland while i was over visiting my maestro card would come back not authorised and would then have to go through the process of calling them to get it to go through. I've never once had a problem with my visa debit card.

EDIT AGAIN, I'm full of information today. Do you have a NI number? If not start the ball rolling on that as well. You will need this to register with the doctor, dentist ect. Open an isa account straight away as soon as you have you NI insurance number, there a great thing to have totally tax free! You have a year living over there before you need to convert your licence to an english one. It a very simple process to do anyway and if your going to be getting your own insurance it will be cheaper to have an english licence. They only ask you if you have an english licence or an EU licence. I said EU first cause it wasn't english got quoted £1500!!!! rang back a few mins later, same details just changed my name and said i had a full english licence and was quoted £600. So much for it not making a difference. If your going to london get an oyster card, you can get them from any newsagent.

I went the other way from UK to here and they didn't recognise any UK history..

May be going slightly off topic here,

But I'm thinking of opening a [broken link removed], which I can apply for from RoI? I can't afford any delays opening an a/c, and need my first month's salary asap.

@samanthajane
Can I kick start the national insurance number process by applying in Newry? Can I give a Dublin address on a Newry application?

Have you phoned the bank and tried to open it over the phone? It wont be in full working order untill they have all the information but they could give you the account number so your wages can be lodged into your account.

Yes you can get a NI number from newry. Doesn't matter where you apply and where you actually end up working. There are lots of people that live in Ireland and work in NI and vise versa. You cant legally start working in UK without your NI number.

These people do it all for you at a fee of £40

[broken link removed]

Or you can do it yourself from here

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTa...rSupport/BeginnersGuideToBenefits/DG_10014073

I'm not sure if you have a family going over with you or what your wages are, but look into tax credits aswell.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxcredits/start/who-qualifies/overview/quick-questionnaire.htm