Regular Payments to USA and USA Bank Account

As always I’m disappearing down a Google rabbit hole so looking forward some real world experience.

In short; I have family in the US, visit fairly often (not often enough :(). I’d like to set up a regular gift to my nephew who will go to university in 5 years time to help with his living costs etc. Having a US bank account for myself would also be useful for visits, Christmas, Birthdays etc.

So from what I can gather I can open a Bank of America account as a British citizen (they don’t need a social security number).
Then I just need to make regular transfers to fund that account (which in turn would fund an account in my nephews name in the US).
Western Union seem to be the cheapest option, would have preferred a monthly STO type setup but perhaps manual quarterly payments are more efficient.

I’m not talking about big sums of money. Probably a few hundred pounds a month.

Am I barking up the right lamppost or are there more efficient / effective ways?

TIA.