Please give your feedback on personal current accounts

kevpc

banks are quick enough to charge extortionate rates of interest on money overdrawn but pay almost no interest (£0.01%?) when in credit. interest rates should be proportionate to charges. most people have their wages/salary/benefits paid directly into a current account. why, yet again, should banks gain from the use of these funds and customers get basically nothing, just because funds may get moved around quickly and frequently?

campaigner_2

1) Slowness of cheque clearance is still one of the biggest banking scandals.
2) I am allowed to transfer no more than £10K by BACS yet I can transfer 5 X £10K one after the other within minutes. What is the point of that? (regularly moving £50K from one savings account provider to another to obtain the best interest rate)
3) Payments in euros should not attract an additional fee (typically £20 or more) - the low exchange rate generally used should be compensation enough for the bank!
4) Authorised regular direct debit collectors can collect on any date that they want! If they collect early this can put your account into 'overdraft' when you are not expecting it. You should be able to specify when authorising a direct debit that the amounts cannot be taken before a stated day of the month.
5) You can have a substantial balance in your account for 30 days of the month and not be paid interest, yet one day £1 overdrawn attracts say a £20 charge. Should there not be an 'averaging out' provision?

izools

dumbledor wrote: »

If you go in to over draft and the money is paid in to your account before the end of that day a charge of £ 35 is day light robbery :money:

Once again, Lloyds don't do this. They even text you to remind you that you have until the end of the day to pop the money in to prevent charges!!

jambosans

semi-pro-saver wrote: »

Sadly there are many ways banks could improve there service. But the one thing I would like to see happen the most is that when you go overdrawn you can opt into recieving email notification.

It may not be an e-mail, but Halifax (for free) and Lloyds TSB (for £2.50 per month) will text you when you breach your limit. A text (for me personally) is more useful than an e-mail.

jamez79

Hi,

Between us all, we've got some great ideas.

Here's what I think:

Interest charged for overdrafts should be proportionate to interest paid for being in credit. That'd shake things up a bit! how can the banks charge 20% apr or more for arranged overdrafts and pay a pitiful 0.1% interest for being in credit. Its plain wrong.

I like the idea of saving the change when you pay by debit card. This should be an option for everyone. Some don't like the idea, so it should be a choice on your account. ie tick a box when banking online.

I don't think we should be charged for going a few pence or even a few quid over our arranged overdraft, provided we pay it back within a set period 5days or a week. They could text a mobile to warn you when you've gone over.

The banks should not be allowed to charge a £1 per day for going into your overdraft unless its a substantial overdraft where it benefits us. Going just £1 into your overdraft for a month costs £30 with the halifax! At the least, it should be capped like A&L. Can you tell i switched to them from Halifax. :-)

The Faster payment scheme should be done across all banks, so as soon as you switch money from one account to another it arrives in the other account within 2 hours. Its all electronic so i can't see what the fuss is.

Surely cheques could clear a bit quicker than 3-5 working days!

Jamez79

Interester

sandyl wrote: »

Herewith my thoughts and frustrations:

1. Lloyds only allow a maximum of £10K per transaction per 24 hour period (although the website does not specify what this 24 hour period is - it certainly isn't calculated on the 24 hour clock). Their excuse is that this is to protect me the customer......

2. Electronic transfers should take place on the same day if completed before 1200. No exceptions.

3. All interest rates should be shown on the website statement pages. Given that banks offer one rate then close this, it is essential that you understand what your specific account is receiving.

4. Banks should give 30 day notice of all changes to their interest rates, in particular to special offers that are due to expire.

I would also like to share a problem I had with Ulster Bank. When I wrote and asked for my savings account to be closed and the balance transferred, they actually sent me a cheque (and this after banks have stated they want to abolish cheques). As a result of this, I estimate that I have lost a minimum of 10 days interest. I am aggressively pursuing this with them.

The above example is how banks manipulate customer's money to their advantage and continually get away with it. Their priority is not the customer but the profit to be extracted from them. As far as I am concerned this is daylight robbery.

3 I would like them to put the interest rate alongside the actual amount of interest on the item as well as the rate in bold at the top of the page.

Mrs_Ryan

I would like some sort of transparancy with debit cards - for instance, the difference between a full-auth and offline debit card should be made crystal clear when the account is opened and not left to trial and error - A&L were useless at this and particularly with the banks that have done away with CG cards to someone who doesnt know it can be impossible to tell the difference!

jambosans

jamez79 wrote: »

Interest charged for overdrafts should be proportionate to interest paid for being in credit. That'd shake things up a bit! how can the banks charge 20% apr or more for arranged overdrafts and pay a pitiful 0.1% interest for being in credit. Its plain wrong.

If banks paid the actual rate of interest they earn, you could say goodbye to the "free-in-credit" model.

jamez79 wrote: »

I like the idea of saving the change when you pay by debit card.

Lloyds TSB offer this, it's called Save the Change.

jamez79 wrote: »

I don't think we should be charged for going a few pence or even a few quid over our arranged overdraft, provided we pay it back within a set period 5days or a week. They could text a mobile to warn you when you've gone over.

That would be nice, but banks don't provide unarranged borrowing out of the goodness of their hearts. Halifax (the bank you've left) provide a £10 buffer on arranged and unarranged overdrafts; text you if you go into an unarranged overdraft; and if you clear the unarranged overdraft by the end of the day (midnight), you're not charged.

jamez79 wrote: »

The banks should not be allowed to charge a £1 per day for going into your overdraft unless its a substantial overdraft where it benefits us. Going just £1 into your overdraft for a month costs £30 with the halifax! At the least, it should be capped like A&L. Can you tell i switched to them from Halifax. :-)

Going one pound into an overdraft of any sort (arranged or unarranged) costs nothing. A bit of discipline and you could earn £60 per year from Halifax (tax deducted). Seems you jumped ship rather hastily to what is generally regarded a much poorer operation (A&L). Specifically, as mentioned above, Halifax are already providing some of the services you would like to see implemented.

jamez79 wrote: »

The Faster payment scheme should be done across all banks, so as soon as you switch money from one account to another it arrives in the other account within 2 hours. Its all electronic so i can't see what the fuss is.

Agreed to a point. However, with Faster Payments being real-time, it requires a lot of different bank systems to talk with one another, so there is a bit of "fuss" involved. Still, there are some banks with full operation - Barclays, HSBC (including First Direct), and RBS Group (NatWest & RBS). Then the stragglers, such as the Lloyds Banking Group (Halifax, Bank of Scotland & Lloyds TSB) with a 2.5k limit which seems to have issues (particularly HBOS's haphazard service). Still, though, you could be with Santander with a £250 limit for A&L and no service from Abbey. Right now, until they sort their acts out, vote with your feet, move to an institution with a better offering (although it seems you've already left one).

jamez79 wrote: »

Surely cheques could clear a bit quicker than 3-5 working days!

It's a piece of paper, part of an archaic method of payment, I'm surprised they manage to clear in seven working days (including day of deposit).

Apologies for specifically ripping appart your post, but it was a good example of my general point: if you don't get the services you require from your bank, move. You can "legislate" to a point, but ultimately most banks are private businesses with shareholders (lets avoid the "we own them" lark). They are there to make money. IMO the bank accounts market competitiveness is stagnent because most people simply accept the status quo, instead of voting with their feet. There are options out there, and there are deals to be had. The more people change their bank, the more this will encourage competition for custom.

Pellyman

1) Statements (online / paper) should show the interest rate.

2) Statements should show the exact name of the product so you actually have a chance of cross referencing your account to the terms and conditions.

Andy[/QUOTE]

Well done Andy, your 1) is surely a must. There is absolutely no reason why every statement shouldn't show the current interest being earned/paid (even if it is 0%) and its' inception date. That way we can check that as well as the opening balance every month or statement.

I also think it isn't too much to ask that, when advising/crediting the interest earned, banks include a full computation. They must have done the sums, so why not share the results with us, it's almost impossible to check as Andy has obviously discovered.

trixibel

Don't eliminate overdrafts, just unplanned/unauthorised overdrafts, and therefore charges. If you haven't got the money to spend, you wont be able to spend it. simples