Despite interventions that have sought to simplify and speed up the process of financial and particularly banking inclusion, many migrants face considerable difficulties in accessing these services, which is attributable to a number of interrelated factors. For a start, the majority of migrants are both unfamiliar with the financial landscape that they encounter in London as well as the particular importance of banking access in negotiating everyday life in the city. While difficulties in both understanding English as well as making themselves understood present further obstacles, undoubtedly the main challenge that some men and women face relates to their immigration status. Within the context of this study, the experiences of migrants such as Hafsa were commonplace, with many men and women approaching two or more high street banks before some were successful in gaining access to banking while others remained unbanked. Significantly, success was clearly dependent upon migrants’ agency and their ability to strategise and mobilise a range of financial, social, civic and human assets at both local and transnational scales. Depending on the kinds of obstacles that men and women faced, these strategies also entailed different kinds and levels of legality and illegality and ranged from the use of family and friends to access financial information and provide translation services to activities such as purchasing false identification documents and bank accounts (see also Vasta, 2006, 2008). While illegal strategies exposed migrants to significant risks, potentially leading to a loss of financial resources as well as erosion of social assets, these dangers had to be balanced against the costs associated with banking exclusion, particularly in relation to restricted access to the formal labour market and welfare (see Chapter Three).