Clydesdale Bank > Reviews > International Banking? What's that?

Author's product rating:   

Staff courtesy
Promptness of service
Efficiency of service
Competitiveness of charges/rates

Advantages:	Can't think of any
Disadvantages:	Still live in 19th century

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I have banked with Clydesdale for about 1 1/2 months - and that was enough. After my wife and I moved to Scotland from Australia we shopped around for a current account and ended up at Clydesdale. They seemed to be the easiest going and least paperwork fanatic. Which was true until we actually wanted to use our account.

We received our tax return cheques from Australia (which were issued by the Australian Tax Office and drawn at the Federal Reserve Bank Of Australia). When I went to pay said cheques into our account I was told that they couldn't accept them, because they were made out in a foreign currency. Upon my question if they had ever heard of international banking and foreign currency exchange, I merely received a strange and annoyed look from the "customer service assistant" (note the irony in that job title already).

I asked to speak to the branch manager, whom I also reminded that Clydesdale is actually owned by National Australia Bank, so it shouldn't be too much hassle to accept a cheque made out in Australian Dollars (especially since the cheques were basically issued by the Australian Government, which should be considered guarantee enough for an amount of about AU$1500.00). But to no avail.

I ended up having to send the cheques back to Australia and pay them into our Credit Card account, which we fortunately had not closed yet.