SB: Business Bank Accounts

TallHall · 31 July 2005 at 1:32PM

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For full info on small business bank accounts, see the main website's best business bank accounts guide.

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I'm trying to find out some views of the Banks to help me decide which to talk to when starting up a new small business. From your experiences which is the best or worst ?

zico_2 · 1 August 2005 at 6:44PM

Hi
I use bank of scotland and the only charges I get are for cheques I draw when there is less than £5k in my account (most of the time!) Everything else is free. I do not have a lot of cheque or other transactions, and do most things by internet banking. They do charge for business visa card, but most banks seem to. I was originally with HSBC but after the free banking period of 12 months, they wanted to charge me a monthly fee to manage my account!! I did most of the managing myself. Also HSBC cheque charges were 50% more than Bank of Scotland. BoS is not a limited offer either, free banking if you keep account with £5k in it and 40p per cheque you write, but no other charges that I have come accross yet! Only downside is that if I get paid by cheque I have to send by post to them (they provide 1st class pre paid envelopes) and they process it, no charge. It does take a long time for these cheques to clear though!! Had a run in with them after I had only banked with them for a few months and they refunded £35 they charged me for returning a payment after I made a fuss about time scales on cheque clearing!!

Savvy_Sue · 2 August 2005 at 6:54PM

I'm afraid I haven't got the brainpower yet to search for the specific posts but this has been covered before on this board, at some length! So a search or a browse back to earlier pages could be useful.

It is worth thinking about what you want to do in advance. If you need to pay cash in, then the choice is somewhat reduced because you need to be able to get somewhere to pay it in, but some business accounts can be operated by arrangement via PO - Coop, Alliance and Leicester for certain. I can get to a PO on foot from home and work, but actual banks are a different matter.

If you need credit card facilities, that is a whole different ballgame as well!

Good luck.

Peeper_2 · 26 September 2005 at 6:45PM

I have had a quick toot for this and can't seem to find anything about this so... My friend and I are opening a prodominantly internet based company which will be selling costume jewellery online.

As there will be a lot of seperate transactions I am trying to find the best possible business account on the market with the cheapest transaction charges! Can anyone please help???

bridiej · 26 September 2005 at 6:52PM

Do a search of the forum as this has come up several times in the past

billieboy_2 · 26 September 2005 at 7:03PM

We've been with Alliance and Leicester Commercial Bank for about 18 months now. They don't charge for transactions, there is no service charge and they give you interest. I expect they would charge for your customers' e-shopping transactions but I'm sure they would be very competitive. You can do online banking as well which I find extremely useful for checking balances, transferring money, etc. Good luck with your business!

Peeper_2 · 26 September 2005 at 7:18PM

Ooo this looks brilliant!

Who can argue with free!? Is this for a limited time only or is this the standard account package?

I will check out the e-transactions!

Thanks sooo much. :T You're a sweetie.

ukbill69 · 26 September 2005 at 7:40PM

Abby do free bussiness banking for life, Ive just created an account with them. You can bank up to 100 cheques per month free, free bacs. Just sign up an account to get the free cheque banking and then at least you can bacs transfer the money from the cheque abby account to your working business account.

billieboy_2 · 27 September 2005 at 9:28AM

Peeper wrote:

Ooo this looks brilliant! Who can argue with free!? Is this for a limited time only or is this the standard account package?

I will check out the e-transactions!

Thanks sooo much. :T You're a sweetie.

It's for life (unles they change the Ts and Cs at some point in the future?! But that could happen with any bank/BS) and it's unlimited transactions as far as I know. They do charge for BACS transfers though. If you have a personal A & L account you can transfer money to that free online. I haven't got any niggles apart from the 0870 number to contact them and when I used the alternative number from saynoto0870 they said I had rung the wrong number and gave me the 0870 number! I hardly ever ring them now as I do most things online

.

Splashie · 9 October 2005 at 5:53PM

I use to co-op bank as it's ethical and I can do it all online - not a bad system

Splashie

grumpyoldgit_2 · 9 October 2005 at 9:17PM

Splashie wrote:

I use to co-op bank as it's ethical and I can do it all online - not a bad system

Splashie

We are just about to change from Co-Op Business to Abbey as the charges are quite high if you drop below the minimum balance and DON'T YOU DARE go into overdraft.

Pity their ethics don't run to helping small business in the UK :rolleyes:

GoG

SB: Business Bank Accounts

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