Mainland UK requirement is less:
Correct. And if you hold both US and UK you can change primary acct to UK so US HSBC Premier stays qualified as Premier through your HSBC UK account (which only requires ~$65,000 US dollars, as of today's exchange rate). Allows ~$35k in monies to go elsewhere and seek higher interest rates or other investments. Although HSBC Direct at 2.05% in the USA isn't a terrible place to keep the monies.