Is a UK bank account necessary?

This is another one of those posts where I feel the need to put a disclaimer at the beginning.  Obviously, anything that I say here is just my opinion, and based on my experiences.  It can be (and is) different for different people, so don't take my opinion as a 100% correct response to this question.  I'm only putting this out there because once again, prior to coming here, the question of whether or not to get a UK bank account was very confusing and I couldn't find any information to help me out.  So here we go.

When I arrived here, it was my intention to go the the bank (The Royal Bank of Scotland, to be exact... I wanted to have a bank account there because it said Royal and Scotland, haha) and open up a bank account.  This was because basically everything I read was both vague, and somehow also made it sound like it would be a good thing to open a bank account in the UK.  I had also heard (from actually reliable sources, this time) that there can be difficulties using our swipe debit/credit cards abroad (where pin & chip cards are the norm).

However, I eventually decided that I didn't need to get a UK bank account, and here are the reasons why:

1.  My bank (a local credit union), made it so that I didn't have any fees for using my debit card over here.  I only had the 1% ISA fee for using it in a foreign country, and then the non-bank ATM fee (less than $1) when I went to the ATM.  It might sound like a lot but it really wasn't that bad.

2.  I never had a single issue using my swipe card in the UK.  The biggest "issue" I had was that once, a cashier had to run my card through a couple times because she wasn't used to swipe cards.  Thats about it.

3.  Apparently, in the UK, getting a bank account is not as "easy" as it is at home.  It seems (now this is just how it appears to me because obviously I've never tried to get a UK bank account) that you have to 'apply' to get a bank account in the UK, similar to how we apply for credit cards.  They even tell you to not 'apply' to two banks at the same time as that could ruin your chances for being 'approved'.  That just didn't seem worth the hassle.  I was also told it could take a few months to actually get approved, and what would be the use of that?


Also, as far as paying accommodation fees, I was concerned that the only way to do it would be to pay with direct debit (and a UK bank account), and while this is the most common and easy way to do it, they do accept credit cards (but there is a fee to do so).

So yeah, overall, I think that getting a UK bank account is fairly unnecessary.  Definitely talk to your bank beforehand, though, and see if they'll waive the fees for using your card abroad (and also just in general, make sure they know you'll be traveling abroad so they don't freeze your account the first time you use it).

Once again, just my opinion, hopefully it helps! :)