Barclays or LTSB? Especially internet banking...

7sefton

I'm thinking of opening a new bank account, and need to choose between Barclays and LTSB. I know these may not offer the best rates, but the particular accounts I have my eye on suit my needs well.

I need to know, though, which bank you think offers generally the best service. It is particularly crucial that their internet banking service is good and reliable - I am sick of the lack of real-time balance info and general awkwardness of A&L and Co-op. Also factors like the amount of ways you can access your account, and automated services available in-branch are important to me.

Any advice, as always, is much appreciated.

Paul_Herring

I need to know, though, which bank you think offers generally the best service. It is particularly crucial that their internet banking service is good and reliable

I use both regularly, and wrt uptime, I've never had a problem logging on. (In fact out of the 5 or so institutions I use online I've only had regular problems with Egg, and intermittent problems with Halifax.)

No bank can give you a 'real time' balance for an active account, since there will always be transactions that the bank do not know about (typically debit card payments that haven't been booked by the retailer, but things such as outgoing cheques that haven't been banked yet will also not be recorded.)

If it is a real time balance you're after, you're better off keeping track of the transactions yourself and 'crossing them' off as they appear on your account.

Also factors like the amount of ways you can access your account, and automated services available in-branch are important to me.

No experience with phone banking with either, and I distrust things like 'drop boxes' for paying in cheques since I've found they're unreliable.

LTSB do credit cheques the day they're paid in (for the purposes of interest - you still have to wait before you can draw on them.)

If asked to choose between the two, I'd reccomend LTSB. Is there any particular reason you can't open at both?

D1zzy

7sefton wrote: »

I need to know, though, which bank you think offers generally the best service. It is particularly crucial that their internet banking service is good and reliable -

Not used Barclays but LLoyds internet is fine with 3 exceptions

1) No Faster payents
2) a £10,000 daily external transfer limit - and the fact that you cannot enter a transaction to leave your account (even by BACS) on the same day. Its only a real problem whereyou want to move large amounts of money out - you effectively can only put a 10K transaction in every 2 days and each will take 3/4 working days to get where its going.
3) If you already have say a 10K transfer scheduled, you cannot enter another future transaction until the first has left your account, which means you cannot "stack" more than 10K of transactions, you need to login again to set-up the next (for 2 days later), when the first has gone.:mad:

dgl1001

I have internet accounts with both and would recommend LLoyds any day. Their internet banking is very easy to use, unlike Barclays, which i find can be quite difficult. I also like the way LLoyds text me with balance updates. S/O notications and payments to overseas. I don't use phone banking as much, but it works when i use it

Hope this helps

richard9991

Ltsb is great the internet banking is second to none imo and very easy to use

blueberrypie

I have both and would lean towards LTSB, despite its (lack of) on-line Faster Payments, simply because Barclays has the stupid PinSentry card-reader.

yummy_2

I regularly use both but much prefer LTSB online banking. Easier to navigate through than Barclays. I find that with the Barclays Online Banking, you need to have a pinsentry device with you when you want to set up a new payment to a 3rd party. Lloyds, however are more straight forward. Lloyds also offer more services like weekly text alerts and are also improving their security processes when a new payment has been set up; this might be helpful to you. I am unable to post a link as i am a newbie to this site. To find out more go to their site - security - authentication procedure

Have used their phone service and found them to be fine. Can't comment on the Barclays phone service as I have not used them before.

But you need to bear in mind the negatives mentioned by others here though.

Hope this helps.

vet8

LTSB is OK, but it drives me mad that it still takes the ridiculous time of 4 to 5 days to do an online transfer. They are still in the dark ages.

busiscoming2

I too bank with both online.
Barclays - As has been said you need pinsentry device handy every time you log on, does this make it safer? I would think so. Downside is you have to be careful not to double click as it doesn't like it.

Lloyds - easy to log on and easy to use.
I have used phone banking with lloyds and found it easy to use.

I use depositpoint and find everything (so far) has been credited same day.

blueberrypie

busiscoming2 wrote: »

I too bank with both online.
Barclays - As has been said you need pinsentry device handy every time you log on, does this make it safer? I would think so.

Not according to the experts:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/fc09optimised.pdf

ashknowsbest

barclays do however have pre approved offers showing on online banking, not sure about ltsb