Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions her Department has had with the British Bankers' Association on the process of opening a bank account for refugees who have been granted asylum in the UK.

Home Office officials met with the British Bankers’ Association to discuss a range of issues, including the process of opening a bank account for refugees.

To help refugees to prove their identity, when an individual is granted refugee status by the Home Office they are issued with a Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) as proof of the holder’s right to stay, work or study in the UK.

How firms verify their customers’ identities is not stipulated in law or by the regulator. Banks may ask for driving licences and passports as forms of identification, as they are the most commonly encountered documents, but banks are not required to demand sight of them, and are encouraged to act reasonably and consider a wide range of other forms of identification.