opening a bank account

Just recently I tried to open a small business bank account with Barclays but have been told that commodity and financial futures trading falls under Barclays Corporate and I would have to go to them.
I was wondering if anyone else has had difficulties in opening a bank account which is for your trading for tax purposes
I really don’t wish to register as a limited company, for something which is a part-time hobby/ business.
Well that’s my problem. Any ideas or experiences?

In US we have DBA (Doing Business As) accounts. You dont need the LLC or Incorp. Just a business License and most banks wont give you a hard time.

In UK is their something similar??

If you are not a seperate entity (limited company) - there shouldn't be any reason why you can't just open a personal account and ensure you treat it seperately and only use it for trading/business purposes.

I know of people who do this for their own business for putting cheques through and their accountant says its fine. They also save on account handling charges for cheques as this is typically 50p per cheque.

why do you need to open a business account?

if you are a directional futures speculator why not just trade personally under capital gains tax?

You get a 10k CGT tax free allowance, and no NICs to pay, and no 40%/50% tax bands when you start to make big money.

surely you would need to claim a lot of expenses (eg software rental, office space etc) to make it worth while going down the business route?

Thanks for the reply's everyone.

I do note what Donaldduke said about CGT

except the new government are about to change the tax rates on CGT.

to what?

No one knows yet, but at a guess 40% then 50% after a certain point.