Best bank account for PhD stipend - £15,000/year

Reactive

Can anyone recommend a good bank to put my university stipend into over the next three years?

My stipend amounts to £15,000 tax free/year, + the potential for a few thousand more from my industrial sponser.

Are there any banks that I should avoid?

Sorry if I'm being too vague!

Sophie4120

I have Natwest and HSBC student accounts. I just presented them with my certificate of student status, they didn't seem to notice (or care about) the postgrad bit! It involves a bit of jiggling money about, but they currently give me £2650 worth of interest free overdrafts which I put into savings to earn a bit of interest

Savings wise, I opened the Santander first home saver which gives a gross interest rate of 5%. It requires you to save between £100-£300 per month else the interest rate plummets, but it's definitely affordable on the stipend (assuming you aren't living beyond your means!).

DrSyn

This is a "How long is a bit of srting question"

1.By "Best Bank" what exaxctly are you looking for,what things are important to you?

2. Do you already have a bank account? If so who with and are you willing to switch?

3. Would this be your main account or a second bank account?

savagej

The Co-operative Bank's student account does include full-time postgraduate students in it's eligibility criteria, how they would arrange the overdraft according to your year of study I don't know, assuming you want an overdraft. Otherwise I think all student accounts are much the same these days, just differing overdraft level and probably all geared to undergraduates, there are graduate accounts but as I recall you can only open one and keep it for a year or 2 after you "under" graduate.

Reactive

DrSyn wrote: »

This is a "How long is a bit of srting question"

1.By "Best Bank" what exaxctly are you looking for,what things are important to you?

2. Do you already have a bank account? If so who with and are you willing to switch?

3. Would this be your main account or a second bank account?

1. A very large overdraft, online banking, speed at getting it set up

2. I already have an account, although it's from a foreign bank (Deutsch), and I recently closed my British bank account.

3. This would be my main account.

DrSyn

1. As this is going to be your main account you will want no hassle, I would advise against Santander. You only need to do a search on this forum to see the problems people have had with them.

2. First Direct,Smile(Co-op Banks internet bank) ,LLoydsTSB are all supposed to have decent internet banking I understand. The first two always get over 80% in the customer satisfaction polls.

3.With First Direct you have to payin £1500 per month or be charged a monthly fee. This fee can be avoided by taking out their credit card or start one of their savings account. In addition they pay you £100 if you switch to them using their switching service.

4. Which ever bank you chose is unlikey to pay you interest on any money in your current account. If you do have any money to save, link it to a savings account at ING.


5. "A very large overdraft" is subjective and I would expect depend on how banks view your credit wortheness! Cannot help you there.