Business Banking - help please!

Generali

My wife is pregnant for the 2nd time (you'd think we'd know where they came from by now) and so I am reviewing our finances in a desperate attempt pay for the little one.

I am self-employed and have a business current account and deposit account with HSBC. The deposit account pays interest at 2.03% and the current account at 1% (0.1%???) and I pay whacking charges on top of that!

I have been looking for a new account and the Alliance and Leicester is the best I have found so far. They charge 20p per £100 banked (I expect to pay in between £50 and £75,000 per year, via BACS & write out about 16 cheques a year) and will pay me 4% interest on the deposit account. Does anyone know if I can do better than this? Are there any tax implications I need to know about?

I will have a cash balance in the account of £10-25,000 at any one time. This account is never overdrawn (oh that I could say the same thing for my personal account).

Any help gratefully received.

martyn4764

Hi

I might be out of date (and there seems to be no info onthe website either), but we're with Abbey, and I think the account is totally free of charges within certain limits (I *think* a t/o of £100k, and more cheques than you'd be paying in).

Worth checking out?

Hope that helps

Martyn

Savvy_Sue

Also worth looking on the Small Biz board where we have discussed this subject before - I have no experience in this area but think Abbey has had the thumbs up a few times!

princess275

hi

i was just having a chat about this subject with someone (who is changing his acount too) and he was convinced the co-op was the way to go. Now i havent checked it out but the person i chatted to likes doing his homework for these kind of things so it may be worth investigating.

sonia

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Generali

The co-op looks ok as it has no charges. However, the interest rates are on the low side. As I don't put lots of cheques or cash in, it seems that Abbey is going to be the best bet for me. That or A&L.

regularsaver1

Halifax do business banking - free for one year via Bank of Scotland. You can use the branch counters too. and very competitive afterwards

Generali

Thanks everybody for your posts.

As I only have 1-2 credits each week and 1-2 debits each month, along with a relatively large credit balance, it is cheaper for me to pay the low charges and get a higher rate of interest on my cash.

Thanks again.