“If it were easy, everybody would be doing it”. This is something we say to each other very often. Currently almost on a daily basis.

So we thought we had found an affordable and easy solution for our banking challenge in the form of TransferWise. It worked with PayPal, right? And we only had to configure it with Stripe and we were ready to go, right? Wrong….

When implementing our TransferWise account with Stripe, we got an error saying that our account was incompatible with Stripe. Only hours after that, we received an email from PayPal with the same message. We contacted Stripe and got a response with a link to a page on TransferWise’s website, stating that they are incompatible with both PayPal and Stripe. The TransferWise employee we had spoken to earlier had sounded well informed when he told us that it would work, but apparently, he wasn’t.

So, back to the drawing board. Again… We need a bank account with a brick and mortar bank after all. And since we’ll be in London next week, we’d better move fast so we can make our personal appearance to verify our identities.

England has 4 big banks. We chose HSBC, for their terms and conditions seem slightly more favorable than those of the other three banks. You can apply for an account online, so that’s what we wanted to do.

However, not very far into the application, you need to provide a UK mobile phone number. Which we don’t have. We got in touch with Jon from HSBC through chat, and he confirmed that you absolutely need a UK number. A german number just won’t do.

We could therefore not finish the application. Friday, as soon as we arrive in the UK, we will buy a UK SIM card. Let’s hope that will suffice and we’ll be able to finish the application. Fingers crossed, for only the good lord knows what they might demand further…