to change business bank or stay with the devil you know

nickj_2

my business bank is barclays and currently pay £30 per 1/4 in bank charges which in the grand scheme of things isn't a great deal , the only other choices in my nearst town is hsbc , lloyds and nat west who as far as i can tell have similar charges after the free intro period has finished , the only free option is alliance and leicester via post office / post which seems a bit to slow when you need cheques cleared in less that a week , if anyone has any experiance of their service i would be greatful of any feedback

cottager

We do use A&L, but sorry, I can't really help for what you need to know re cheque clearances and the full banking service. From what I've picked up on MSE my impression is it may not be a very 'full' service at all compared with the biggie banks, or at least quite slow as you've hinted at, but I could be wrong.

We only use our A&L business account for banking cash without charge (within the monthly limits) to save on the charges for banking cash at Natwest where the main business account is held. Nothing else. We pay it in at the local PO and write a cheque for an equal amount to the business, to bank as normal at Natwest with other cheques. Works very well and does save some charges, but then our business takes in a fair bit of cash -- if you don't there's no benefit, nor if you handle very little cash as the minimum amount to put through A&L to avoid a charge from them is £1000/month.

There are downsides to staying with the big banks from comments read at MSE, not least the charges, but we would not personally be tempted to move away from the full service they offer. Things may not be as perfect as they should be or as we would all like, but for a business with a reasonably busy account I think they're a necessary evil -- that's only my personal view, others may have good grounds to disagree. Having said that, we've never had any problems with Natwest (apart from one serious c***up last year which wasn't the branch's fault, but the online banking section) and have always been very satisfied -- that's 30 yrs and counting. But there's no doubt we've paid them a lot in charges in that time!

The only other business bank account I've heard people talking about with no charges is Abbey (or sorry, Santander now), but I don't know any details. However many say Abbey have a unique reputation all of their own so far as banking and customer service are concerned! Of course A&L's part of Santander now, although won't be rebranded till later in the year... we're waiting to see if we'll be able to carry on using the A&L account just as we have been, or if it'll be all change when the systems merge.