OK - so you pressed my "Experience" button! Here are some personal thoughts and ideas on a selection of Banks so you can see what I think: this is all hugely summarised so come and talk to me if you'd like more info - - Barclays - tended to be snotty with students some years ago, so I left £0 in my account for 10 years and gave up all but the Barclaycard, which is probably /functionally/ the best credit card you can get (though Amex plastic beats all HANDS DOWN on service), but see notes on SMILE. - Egg - started out well with a nice really personalised feel, but Prudential, the owners, don't like them (because they've been trying to sell them and can't) and it shows. The Egg credit card has had some problems recently with speed of transfers, so I don't recommend it. The accounts and internet accounts are sound enough, but as I say Prudential don't love them much any more and their share price is crap, so I wouldn't use them if I were you. - Citibank - pretentious. VERY good phone service, but the web service is a bit icky sometimes. They do all their banking through Lloyds, oddly enough. So that's their Counter Presence. Very appropriate for the up and coming City professional. They sell themselves on being an Investment Banker with a personal service and you can open foreign currency accounts easily and offshore accounts easily too. You also get a personal banker, which is quite nice (LloydsTSB scrapped theirs until the introduction of their Premier Service), but you do have to put a minimum of about £20,000 in there to get them to take you seriously, otherwise 2K in the current account is the minimum investment. They have some quite neat ways of making money including 60 day-type accounts and Forex differentials which are risky. Recommended if you have dosh to play with. Not otherwise as their current accounts can have low interest. - Alliance and Leicester - sound good but get picky with their current accounts and how much you pay into them. Unfortunately I'm a share holder, so I shouldn't complain. Actually, some quite good interest earning products. - LloydsTSB - still the best for my money. They are probably the most innovative bank on an /all-round basis/, and have a good range of products with a reasonable halfway house towards Premier service, the Platinum account. It has some nice features --sensible tiered interest, high interest savings accounts, goodies hanging off accounts and cards. However, they can be distant and have moved away from personal service (except for business accounts, and here I quite like their service which is innovative and friendly) unless you use their Premier accounts, for which you need to give them 100K. I still like them. Don't fall for the 100K stuff --the Platinum Account is fine. Keep 5K in there and it's free. Look out for their Internet Only account which is a good earner. ISAs are a little under-performing but I suggest Virgin Money instead for those. - SMILE - Jury's still out. 3% interest on current account with no min or max balance. I found they do stupid things like send unsigned new Gold Cards to the address I had three years ago, charge me when they make a mistake of debiting a credit card account TWICE for the same amount, and need hassling to get things right. They did in the end, though. I like the visibility of all your accounts in one place. Fortunately: a) they are ethical, which I like; b) their Gold Card is the best all-round card as it pays you money back on a MONTHLY BASIS (none of the others I know about do and they're all cutting their rates except this one); c) Interest on their savings accounts is good; d) there are some excellent other services, like share dealing and stuff. - Natwest - their interest rates are appalling. Have closed all but one of my accounts. Not very impressive these days.
So, what do I recommend? I suggest you go for SMILE, warily at first, as your ethical new banker, but KEEP at least one LloydsTSB current account open as your high street bank. It is easy peasy to transfer money between banks these days using internet access --simple to set up both for LL and for SMILE. Anyway, let me know what you think.
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chiming
Banks
Date: August 20th, 2004 12:04 pm (UTC)From:- Barclays - tended to be snotty with students some years ago, so I left £0 in my account for 10 years and gave up all but the Barclaycard, which is probably /functionally/ the best credit card you can get (though Amex plastic beats all HANDS DOWN on service), but see notes on SMILE.
- Egg - started out well with a nice really personalised feel, but Prudential, the owners, don't like them (because they've been trying to sell them and can't) and it shows. The Egg credit card has had some problems recently with speed of transfers, so I don't recommend it. The accounts and internet accounts are sound enough, but as I say Prudential don't love them much any more and their share price is crap, so I wouldn't use them if I were you.
- Citibank - pretentious. VERY good phone service, but the web service is a bit icky sometimes. They do all their banking through Lloyds, oddly enough. So that's their Counter Presence. Very appropriate for the up and coming City professional. They sell themselves on being an Investment Banker with a personal service and you can open foreign currency accounts easily and offshore accounts easily too. You also get a personal banker, which is quite nice (LloydsTSB scrapped theirs until the introduction of their Premier Service), but you do have to put a minimum of about £20,000 in there to get them to take you seriously, otherwise 2K in the current account is the minimum investment. They have some quite neat ways of making money including 60 day-type accounts and Forex differentials which are risky. Recommended if you have dosh to play with. Not otherwise as their current accounts can have low interest.
- Alliance and Leicester - sound good but get picky with their current accounts and how much you pay into them. Unfortunately I'm a share holder, so I shouldn't complain. Actually, some quite good interest earning products.
- LloydsTSB - still the best for my money. They are probably the most innovative bank on an /all-round basis/, and have a good range of products with a reasonable halfway house towards Premier service, the Platinum account. It has some nice features --sensible tiered interest, high interest savings accounts, goodies hanging off accounts and cards. However, they can be distant and have moved away from personal service (except for business accounts, and here I quite like their service which is innovative and friendly) unless you use their Premier accounts, for which you need to give them 100K. I still like them. Don't fall for the 100K stuff --the Platinum Account is fine. Keep 5K in there and it's free. Look out for their Internet Only account which is a good earner. ISAs are a little under-performing but I suggest Virgin Money instead for those.
- SMILE - Jury's still out. 3% interest on current account with no min or max balance. I found they do stupid things like send unsigned new Gold Cards to the address I had three years ago, charge me when they make a mistake of debiting a credit card account TWICE for the same amount, and need hassling to get things right. They did in the end, though. I like the visibility of all your accounts in one place. Fortunately: a) they are ethical, which I like; b) their Gold Card is the best all-round card as it pays you money back on a MONTHLY BASIS (none of the others I know about do and they're all cutting their rates except this one); c) Interest on their savings accounts is good; d) there are some excellent other services, like share dealing and stuff.
- Natwest - their interest rates are appalling. Have closed all but one of my accounts. Not very impressive these days.
So, what do I recommend? I suggest you go for SMILE, warily at first, as your ethical new banker, but KEEP at least one LloydsTSB current account open as your high street bank. It is easy peasy to transfer money between banks these days using internet access --simple to set up both for LL and for SMILE. Anyway, let me know what you think.