I got my application pack emailed to me and filled out. I still need to print it, get two forms of ID certified at the Post Office and then snail mail it all back to my personal banker (to be).
I’ll also need to email 3 months’ of bank statements for every account I use (they can’t be scanned, have to be PDFs downloaded directly).
It’s an almighty faff and have now come down ill so the earliest I’ll be able to do it is next week, I expect.
Is this purely for ID&V or do they scrutinise it to work out whether they want ya? To say their tech is lacklustre and everything is very manual, your personal banker must be something of a miracle worker. We’re all waiting on pins and needles…
It is very much to scrutinise your finances.
Handelsbanken project update: this now very much sits in the ‘too difficult’ pile.
Given my ‘local’ branch is 30 mins away and they’re only open 9-5 M-F, I physically can’t get there to present my ID.
Otherwise I could mail them certified copies, but they cost £12.50 at the Post Office and I’m not even sure they’d be accepted. The personal banker I spoke to shared a long list of what they need to see on a certified copy and I don’t think the PO do half of them even.
Beyond that, the account costs £25 per month to maintain, and in exchange for that you get… nothing? Someone to call if you need to.
But unless you rely on someone to manage every transaction on your behalf, I don’t see the benefit of it. It doesn’t come with any perks that other premier accounts come with, and it just seems like money for nothing.
Their other products aren’t that competitive, either. Savings rate I was quoted was woefully underwhelming, even 2 base rate hikes ago.
I used to know somebody who banked with Handelsbanken, not sure if it’s changed (it was a good few years ago - maybe 2015/16?) but at the time they used HSBC as their clearing bank so inbound/outbound faster payments outside of business hours didn’t go through until the next working day
Edit: ah looks like that might still be the case Sort codes | Handelsbanken
Here at Handelsbanken although we provide branch support, we don’t have a traditional counter service, which means we don’t use sort codes to denote each branch in our network. Instead we allocate sort codes to differentiate between our Individual and Corporate Banking customers and the counter services they can expect from our partner banks.
Our Individual Banking customers are allocated a sort code which represents NatWest/RBS and our Corporate Banking customers use a sort code, representing HSBC.
Well if you’re wanting to re live banking in the good old days of the 60s I guess they might be an option. Sheesh.
Oh that makes it so much worse for the £25 monthly fee 
I don’t think I’ll bother to be honest. Maybe one day they’ll shift more to online and it’ll be easier to get a quick account for the card and then bin.
If it’s any consolation the card design looks boring anyway
Did some digging and it appears the cut-off for FPS is 23:40 these days (working days, and still anything done on weekends will be scheduled for the next working day). Kinda nuts for 2023, but maybe it suits their clientele fine 
I struggle to see the value proposition here for £25 a month…
The card oddly looks better in landscape than portrait too
Strong Starling vibes before it added all the world debit, contactless symbol and other guff.
I suppose the value for these ‘banks’ is the options and wealth management they are providing.
They aren’t really there for people to just have as an everyday account without a good portion of wealth or investment I imagine.
We have a few customers (lords/ladys) who come in and have these account cards when paying
