Best Personal Bank Account - Willing to pay for benefits

JMcC

I am currently a Royal Bank of Scotland Customer, having a 'Royalties' account (can't remember exactly what it is called).

This current account costs me £12 per month. Main benefits of the account are as follows (in addition to standard current account facilities) -

Access to relationship manager (used to be good, but the original person left and was replaced, that service is now very poorl).

Free Worldwide family travel insurance. Useful for me.

Holiday booking service (which gives a discount off holidays and is generally very good). Also provides access to lounges when travel booked through this service.

Free £250 overdraft with Overdraft facility up to £1000 (never used more than the free £250, so not sure what the rate would be, but it is at a discounted rate).

I am reasonably satisfied with the account, and have no real reason to switch. However I am wondering if there would be any benefit in moving. I am happy to continue to pay a fee if the benefits are worthwhile.

I do have on line access now and this is something I regard as a necessity.

This may be an interesting thread and I hope many of you can comment on what accounts and benefits you currently enjoy or are aware of.

I'll be looking with interest and would switch if I see something better than I have.

nomoneytoday

I guess if you add up the costs of annual travel insurance, a couple of airport lounge visits (£15-20 a go) and the AA if you have it too, and its below £144 for the year you have the answer

JMcC

You may well be right. As I say, I'm ok with the account, just wondering if anyone has some way of getting some kind of 'better' deal.

The other thing is I'm getting a bit fed up with the Royal Bank, for a couple of reasons. Mainly that I think they are making too much money. Also the account is supposed to be interest paying, but that is very poor, I get literally pennies each month, despite a fair amount going through the account.

However I am not going to change unless I can find something as good or better.

So far it doesn't look like there is anything better out there.

justruth

Have you seen the allience and leicester account? you get a great interest rate on money in credit an even better rate for regular savings (12% I believe) interest free overdraft etc. It's the premier direct account, I switched when Martin suggested and I am very pleased with it. If you have a friend with the account you both get £50 too when you open it. If not PM me and I'll happily get £50 for nothing!

JMcC

Thanks for that. I've been in the Web site and had a look. It does look tempting, but I'm not sure at this point if it is worth switching.

However, if I do I'll ping and get you the £50.

Not sure I will though, but lets see.

Thanks again.

justruth

No worries, you find the account that's right for you.

CopperPlate_2

Hmmm.

So you're looking for a bit more interest on your cash each month - understandable, as RBS pay oooohh 0.1%? no wait, you are a Royalties Gold account holder, so you'll get 0.15%. What will you spend that extra .05% on each month... :rolleyes2 Or of course if you've a balance of £10k you'll get 0.5% :eek:on Royalties Premier...

Have you looked at smile?

It pays 3.odd% interest each month. If you take smilemore, their packaged account, you get a fee and interest free OD of £260 a month (plus fee free up to £500 but you're charged 11.9% as opposed to RBS which charges between 14 and 15% on OD rates.)

smilemore has the travel insurance and also the breakdown cover provided by Green Flag. It also gives commission free travel currency and other extras. Plus there are also discounts for booking through Travelcare, the Co-Op's travel arm. The link is here for smilemore: http://www.smile.co.uk/servlet/Satellite?cid=1036673965918&pagename=Smile%2FPage%2FsmView&c=Page

Customer service I've found to be excellent - 3 years with them and no problems at all with the way the account is run. Used to be a customer of RBS but got sick of the pennies of interest I was getting and the massive profits they were making and felt I was being taken as a mug. Haven't looked back since.

The switch was effortless. smile did all the transfers and as it's all online you can keep track of each DD as it comes on line so you know how much money to put into your new account and keep in the old one to cover those that haven't switched over by the new date. Secure messaging is very good and if you need to phone them the staff are very helpful and efficient.

You've also got the 'feel good' factor that they're part of the Co-Op movement and your money is being put to a 'better' use than it might be with RBS or the other Big Five banks.

And I don't work for them, honestly. Just converted that's all. I don't have smilemore as I never use the OD now, have travel insurance from another source, and also the breakdown cover from another source, so didn't feel the rest warranted me paying a tenner a month for when the standard current account does me just fine.

At the end of the day, you're obviously feeling that the grass might be a greener on the other side. I felt a bit like that too, but was very apprehensive about losing the contact of a branch. That all said, I've never felt that it has been missed. If I need to pay in money to my account, I can pay cash in which clears instantly at my local Post Office, or post a cheque or pay it in to the Post Office too. You've to count up which services you use with RBS Royalties - whether they represent good value for money in the marketplace, not just compared to other packaged accounts - and whether it's possible to get them cheaper individually elsewhere. Then balance that against the hefty monthly fee they are charging you - £144 a year is a bit steep for what's on offer really. Is the holiday service providing you with a discounted holiday or travel that, if you booked it through another provider and negotiated/bartered with them, you would get even cheaper than the RBS discounted offer? Not sure, but something which I'm sure you've thought of yourself!

HTH

jimclark1967

justruth wrote:

Have you seen the allience and leicester account? you get a great interest rate on money in credit an even better rate for regular savings (12% I believe) interest free overdraft etc. It's the premier direct account, I switched when Martin suggested and I am very pleased with it. If you have a friend with the account you both get £50 too when you open it. If not PM me and I'll happily get £50 for nothing!

Just to clarify: The 12% regular saver is now only available with the "Premier" current account, not the "Premier Direct" 6.1% current account - it's caught a few people out!!

To the original poster: You should be able to get at least 4% on your current account without any short term bonus rates. My current favourites are:

1) Lloyds TSB Classic Plus account (pays 4% if you pay in £1000 a month)

2) Smile - As mentioned above - great customer service and fine so long as you don't use traditional branch based services anyway.

both of the above have no monthly fee.

JC

justruth

I appologise my mistake, I switched after Martins article, I still have 5% interest on my current account, 10% interest on my regular savings and 0% on my overdraft fee free provided I pay in £500 a month.

JMcC

I've had a good look at the web site. Smile does look attractive.

The major benefit would be the roadside recovery part. And of course it would be a little cheaper than the Royal Bank.

Really good post and I am grateful you took the time. Your comments re good Customer service are very important. I think I am with RBOS simply through habit now.

The fact I get next to nothing in interest is annoying and I pay £12 per month and it would seem I could get more for less with Smile.

However I will mull over for a bit and see.

I wonder what RBOS would do if I told them I was looking at other accounts ? Do they have some kind of incentive they could use to try to retain my business ?

CopperPlate_2

From my own experience, RBS didn't bat an eyelid. I'd been with them for over 4 years and the service I received I thought was okay. Other than the queuing in branches every time I went in, it was okay.

I moved to smile probably just as a "wonder if an internet bank would be good" type experiment, and I can honestly say I've never thought of returning to RBS. They've never contacted me and didn't write to query why I was leaving them. I've not heard of them trying to retain someone. Perhaps if you earned a huge amount (hundreds of thousands of pounds, or whatever it takes to qualify for their 'premium' personal account manager) they might try and give you an extra 0.5% interest, but then if you earned that much you probably wouldn't worry about the £12 charge every month and the paltry interest.

Of all the big banks I think RBS is probably the best of a bad bunch. What made me mad was the amount of pure profit they made per second and the next to worthless interest they paid on their 'interest paying current account' and that was what spurned me into moving - the fact that smile could and did pay 30 times that and still manage to give me a decent deal in the customer service stakes, online banking features and general value for money.

Why not just take the plunge and do it? The press is full of reports on consumer apathy. You've started thinking about it - why not just see it through? I can almost guarantee you won't regret it, barring any small admin hiccups, the transfer process is/was completely smooth as far as smile was concerned.

HTH and let us know if you decide to do it - it's always interesting to hear how someone gets on.