One of my pre-travel rituals for the past 20 years has been to ring my bank on the morning of travel to tell them I’m going abroad.
Banks used to encourage you to do this, so that if foreign transactions suddenly started appearing on your account, they would know your card hadn’t been stolen.
Nowadays, however, the bank’s security has reached such levels of sophistication (sorry if that made you choke on your tea) that many banks say it’s no longer necessary to alert them to the fact that you’re going on holiday or travelling on business.
Below is a table of British banks and whether you need to inform them before travelling abroad. We’ve added as many banks as we can find information on, but if your bank isn’t listed and you know their procedures, drop a comment at the bottom of the article and we’ll update the table.
All information correct at the time of publishing.
| BANK | NEED TO INFORM WHEN TRAVELLING ABROAD? |
| Halifax | No |
| Lloyds | No |
| NatWest | Yes, register your travel plans here |
| Santander | Yes, give them a ring on 0800 912 3123 |
| Barclays | No |
| HSBC | Yes, follow the instructions here to inform the bank |
| Nationwide | No |
| Royal Bank of Scotland | Yes, register your travel plans here |
| Metro Bank | No |
| Marks & Spencer | No |
| Tesco Bank | No |
Now read this: Curve review: can this replace your bank cards?
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