Relationship fee - Citibank

Extant

hippey wrote: »

Well, I have a 'packaged' current account, and personally I think I have a good deal, and it's with Barclays.....No I don't work for them (I did 7 years ago) and I have accounts at other banks but for £25 p/m I get:

Worldwide Travel insurance for the whole family (Use it)
Mobile phone cover for both our phones (Use it)
Airport Lounge Access (Actually quite good)
Emergency Home repair service (not used it, but might)
RAC cover for m/cycle and car (Not used it yet, and hopefully never)
Cardholder Protection (Useful)
Interest free overdraft
Cheaper sharedealing (Want to use it but not getting anywhere with it!)

I think in my position we get good value for money, I'm sure if I scoured the internet money saving sites, cashback sites and the like I could get it all cheaper, but I have the advantage of it all being sorted and for £300 per year or less it aint bad! Barclays customer service leaves a lot to be desired though.

Lloyds have a similar account which I used to have.

Life's Rewards plucked me out and offered me two tickets to Michael Jackson shortly after they came on sale. I was honest and told them I was staff and shouldn't take customer benefits like that.

Plus I didn't like the man.

will-in-estoril

BarclaysManager wrote: »

Yes, and that's fine - but you must also realize that outside of this forum, there are actual customers of these products who purchase them as, amongst other things, a convenience - to save arranging the same cover etc. elsewhere themselves. But back in this forum - a forum is a place for open discussion.



As with any financial product, there are going to be customers who are not correctly matched to them. I'll never refute that, but I think it's rather arrogant of you to speak for every package account customer when you say it's been "foisted" on them.



As a banker who works in the retail sector in a bank which took no government funding, and was only forced to raise funds as a result of the FSA's increased and imposed ratios I'd like you to tell me how I brought this country close to financial ruin?

I seem to remember Barclays having to take £1.6 billion from the BOE in August 2007; it looked East last year to make sure its fat cat bosses didn't lose their bonuses.

My argument is very simple and is not dissimilar to Martin's, who has described these accounts as 'a pile of pants'.

So carry on defending, whilst your paymasters get richer.

Extant

will-in-estoril wrote: »

I seem to remember Barclays having to take £1.6 billion from the BOE in August 2007; it looked East last year to make sure its fat cat bosses didn't lose their bonuses.

It borrowed £1.6bn for one night and paid interest on the loan as appropriate, and it borrowed it due to a technical fault at close of business settlement. That doesn't even remotely compare to the bail-outs of Lloyds, RBS, etc.

Barclays raised capital of £7bn at the behest of the UK Government, as part of their plans to ensure sufficient capital ratios were held. Had we chosen to take these funds from the UK Government, we would have lost a greater deal of our independence than ever before. We placed said independence as being of greater value than £7bn, and looked elsewhere.

Considering the bonus that RBS Group's new boss is standing in line for, and the Government's inaction over Sir Fred's compensation, claiming that the move was taken to protect bonuses is ridiculous: it's fairly evident bonuses are still at high levels.

My argument is very simple and is not dissimilar to Martin's, who has described these accounts as 'a pile of pants'.

Perhaps then, you might phrase it yourself, instead of relying on Martin?

So carry on defending, whilst your paymasters get richer.

We all get richer - we're a business, we make profit, it's what we do. Neither my salary nor those of my line managers within Barclays has any bearing on the validity of a packaged current account product in the UK marketplace.

tobiascurious

I recently took out a packaged account because the benefits were worth it and it wasn't sold to me; I contacted them

I'll be cancelling once I've taken my summer holidays though!

AndyInYorks

Well I have to agree with BarclaysManager. I have no vested interest here as the bank I work for now don't sell packaged accounts. I used to work for Barclays and for some customers, the packaged accounts are ideal. For some customers they are not. It is part of the sales process to make sure the account is suitable. When I worked for Barclays, this sales process wasn't always followed correctly, and indeed at around the time I left, was featured on the Whistleblower programme on the BBC.

If people are signed up for these accounts inappropriately, then that is a staff training/monitoring/disciplinary issue. I believe, from former colleagues, that Barclays are now very keen to monitor how these accounts are sold. I am sure BM will confirm that there are processes in place to make sure these accounts are being sold correctly now.

I remember several customers, when being presented with the options, being very happy to take the packaged accounts. Of course things have changed since my time, but the First Additions package used to cost £5 a month and include mobile phone insurance. Most mobile insurance at the time costed £5 a month or thereabouts, so nobody was being ripped off. Especially if they used one of the other benefits too.

It's like asking why would anyone drive to work, when it would be cheaper to ride a bike.

As for bonuses, for frontline staff (I'm not sure how senior BM is but I'm a low level manager in another bank), the bonus really forms part of your benefit package. Banking, at the lower levels is actually not that well paid, certainly not as well paid as people seem to think. I'm not pleading poverty but if it wasn't for my annual bonus, I would probably look elsewhere. So would a lot of colleagues and then the bank would have to raise our basic salary to retain staff.

Incidentally in my bank, and I know in Barclays too, bonus is linked to a "scorecard" so you only actually get one if you're good at your job. if you're in a sales role then of course sales performance contributes towards this but you also have to get good customer service/mystery shopping scores, have a good record of not making errors/causing complaints, turning up for work on time etc.