HSBC business banking free of bank charges

dktreesea

If you have a business with a turnover of less than £500K a year and most of the income comes via the internet, so things like being paid via Paypal, dooyoo.co.uk, Amazon, or you receive payments made online to your own site, then HSBC's internet business account is worth having a look at. If you set it up in conjunction with a normal personal HSBC current account it's even better. The revenue attracts no bank fees at all, unless you bank cheques or cash. You can withdraw £1,000 a month from an ATM fee free, but better is just to have an automatic weekly (or daily even, if rich :-) automatic transfer from your business to your personal account. Then you can do what you like with it.

So how do HSBC make their money from such an account? They come with an overdraft facility, with interest rates a few percent over the base rate, so very low interest rates. I guess they hope people will need to use it. If you buy something on your debit card, they charge a fee.

You don't actually need to use the internet at all for this account. Statements can be printed out at the branch, and anyway they send them out every three months. If you register for phone banking and use their geographic number you can call them for free. Bill payments made this way are free of bank charges. Presumably the same would go with the online facilities.

Rather than paying for anything on a debit card, they offer a corporate credit card for £20 a year. This is worth having. We use ours to buy supplies and stock over the internet. You don't need to be a registered company - a sole trader or partnership can get one. It's up to 56 days interest free if you pay a minimum payment automatically and then pay it off on or before the due date. A corporate credit card doesn't work like a personal card in so far as you can't "release" your limit just by paying it off during the month and reusing it. If you have a limit of £2,000, that's all you can spend on it during the month. Early repayments are pointless - the money doesn't get applied to your account until the statement date. So you may as well just pay it off by phone transfer on or just before the due date.

PBA

Santander's business account also offers everything you mention free of charges, plus you can also bank cash and cheques for free. Also no fee for purchases on the debit card. And you get mailed statements every month.

withnell

PBA wrote: »

Santander's business account also offers everything you mention free of charges, plus you can also bank cash and cheques for free. Also no fee for purchases on the debit card. And you get mailed statements every month.

I'm happy to stick with Abbey for my personal account because of the interest rate, but I've heard so many horror stories about Santander business accounts I think that for the average business the couple of quid fees a month for banking cheques are well worth it!

spenderdave

The big drawback of the 'free' HSBC account above is the charges for paying in cash/cheques at branches, huge... So it is not suitable for my business where most people pay me relatively small amounts in cash. Their normal business account has small but not excessive charges - I pay around 6 quid a month. That account used to pay sensible interest but it is zero these days - and their other business savings accounts pay not that far more...

dktreesea

What we do is pay the cash into our normal account, then, if we need it in the business account (rarely - the money is usually pouring the other way) we do a pill payment over the phone, from the normal chequing account into the business account. Fee free on both accounts. For cheques I just bank these through our normal account, and IF they clear, wait until I have a couple of hundred quid then just do a bill payment into the business account.