Abbey versus Alliance Leicester

moneysavingallday

Seeking a backup current account. What's important to me is

good customer service on phone or in branch
good online banking
normal facilities like chq guarantee card, chq book
don't want to pay in much more per month than £700
reasonable interest rate but interest not all that important
possibility of small (like £250) overdraft

Which of those 2 banks could deliver that? Or are there better suggestions? Thanks a lot you guys

PROLIANT

Recommend Halifax Bank of Scotland, A&L ok-ish but now part of Santander, I no longer bank with them because the service is poor and every time I phone I am on hold for ages and then you get some thick scouse bird on the line giving you a mouthful of abuse because she cant be bothered today.
Halifax Bank of Scotland are fair, English call centres and easy to deal with, left them to go to A&L but soon realised the error that I had made.

olly300

None of the above. Have a search on this board for people's problems and moans about Abbey. A&L are part of the Santander group so expect more problems with them to.

I bank with building societies.

moneysavingallday

olly300 wrote: »

None of the above.

I bank with building societies.

Which ones?

sutton111

nationwide probably.

moneysavingallday

PROLIANT wrote: »

Recommend Halifax Bank of Scotland, A&L ok-ish but now part of Santander, I no longer bank with them because the service is poor and every time I phone I am on hold for ages and then you get some thick scouse bird on the line giving you a mouthful of abuse because she cant be bothered today.
Halifax Bank of Scotland are fair, English call centres and easy to deal with, left them to go to A&L but soon realised the error that I had made.

Did you go back to Halifax after your bad exp with A&L?

Are Halifax BOS definitely merging with LTSB?

PROLIANT

moneysavingallday wrote: »

Did you go back to Halifax after your bad exp with A&L?

Are Halifax BOS definitely merging with LTSB?

Yes they are merging with LTSB, not such a bad thing in the current recession though, it will only make a stronger entity to serve it's customers, Bank of Scotland will remain semi-independent I think, not sure if Scotland would allow their money to bear a picture of a black horse, can't be all bad but my experience with A&L was not very good, Halifax gave me all the facilities I required where as A&L would not.

moneysavingallday

PROLIANT wrote: »

Yes they are merging with LTSB, not such a bad thing in the current recession though, it will only make a stronger entity to serve it's customers, Bank of Scotland will remain semi-independent I think, not sure if Scotland would allow their money to bear a picture of a black horse, can't be all bad but my experience with A&L was not very good, Halifax gave me all the facilities I required where as A&L would not.

Thank you proliant. I hate LTSB with a vengeance but i like the sound of Halifax HBOS. Hmmm

The other thought I had was Co-op but I don't really know anything about them aside from that they're meant to be ethical

lic

Hakifax have great internet access, and have plenty of branches. Though they will probably close a few after the merger.

PROLIANT

moneysavingallday wrote: »

Thank you proliant. I hate LTSB with a vengeance but i like the sound of Halifax HBOS. Hmmm

The other thought I had was Co-op but I don't really know anything about them aside from that they're meant to be ethical

Well I wouldn't say "ethical", that is quite a broad expression these day's, more like choosy about who they give bank accounts to more like.

emma396

i agree with some of the above posters, i have account with quite a few institutions, so far HBOS has been the least hassle. abbey in the last few weeks have been hell, alliance and leicester is small, their online banking is difficult to use and their phone banking leaves customers on hold for a long time.