A story related to regulation that I like to tell people is my experience trying to open a UK bank account when I first moved there. As an EU citizen, I expecte

A story related to regulation that I like to tell people is my experience trying to open a UK bank account when I first moved there. As an EU citizen, I expected the process to be done in jiffy – just walk in to any ol’ bank and ask to open an account. Except, my EU passport and an employment contract that said I’d certainly not be poor and national insurance number and what not apparently meant nothing. No, I had to have a UK address. The apartment hotel I stayed at while trying to find an apartment wouldn’t do either – I needed utility bills you see. (For some reason, utility bills in the UK are basically as good for identification as a passport or drivers license...) In order to get a utility bill of course I had to have a place to live, an apartment or house or what have you. Of course, I couldn’t sign a lease without also setting up a standing order (that’s monthly payments, for anyone as unfamiliar with the term as I was) and of course I couldn’t set up a standing order because to do so I had to have a – you guessed it! – bank account. A catch-22 which means to this day I keep a UK bank account, just to avoid the hassle of trying to set one up should I ever need it again.