Which bank has the best online banking services?

Mikhail

HappySaver1968 wrote: »

Hi, the reason for my asking is this: my bank, "Bank of Scotland" doesn't seem to update my available balance on line as/when I make a purchase or use my card and because of that, there have been times when I've ran dangerously low on funds in my account! does anybody else have this problem? it can take a few days for transactions to show on my account whereas I expected everything to be in real-time which would probably be a whole lot easier. Can I also ask why my account has an available balance of say 457.64 and an overdraft balance of 556.64 (my overdraft is £100) and why has there been a pound missing from my account for the last 7 days? it's like it hasn't updated or something since I made a purchase online.

John.

I have a Santander Zero credit card and I think this is the ONLY card in the UK that shows pending transactions.

King_Weasel

pmduk wrote: »

Actually, the old way is still the easiest, pen and paper,

I completely disagree.

Stone tablets for me.

tednol

Mikhail wrote: »

I have a Santander Zero credit card and I think this is the ONLY card in the UK that shows pending transactions.

Not true. I can see pending transactions on my corporate Barclaycard.

jjlandlord

R34GTT wrote: »

I have used a number of different online accounts and rank them in terms of ease of use / function / layout:

1. Halifax / Bank of Scotland / Lloyds
2. First Direct
3. HSBC (if not for annoying secure key they would be 2.)
4. Natwest
5. Co-Op.

Having both Halifax and HSBC, I find Halifax terrible on all accounts compared to HSBC:
- the layout is unclear and looks unprofessional,
- it's not practical to use,
- they insert ads for other products amongst the list of your accounts as if it was a product you had,
- you can't easily contact them online.

At least they finally allow transfer to be initiated the same day as entered...

HSBC is quite good.
In addition to being able to send them online messages, you can also let them know when you'll be abroad and where so that they know they should expect a burst of card transactions from abroad. (because yes they do check that nothing out of the ordinary happens)

adindas

I have Internet banking with majority of the hight street bank and my personal opinion LLoyds TSb offer the most convenience and comfrtbale of using their IB platform ...

andrew-the-cat

I have Lloyds and Santander. The Santander one used to be HORRENDOUS, however they overhauled it a few months ago and it's better now. Not brilliant, but better.

The Lloyds one on the other hand is great, it's very well laid out and not cluttered.

adindas

What I do not like about HSBC IB is their secure key ...
I access my bank a/c from a lot of diffrent places. There is no way you could access your IB without caarying secure key all the time...
it is quite annoying sometimes as you need that key even if you just want to see transacton to check whether the FP that you reently have sent has arrived, etc ...

But Having said that the HSBC IB platform is still comfortable and easy to use once you get access...
Also they have a reliable IB team which you could rely on. When something goes wrong they are williung to invest time to investigate that ...

naked

I think there was an almost identical discussion about this a few months ago.

I've been with Halifax now for a while and find their online banking is OK but not great. They have recently made lots of improvements, however when they did this a lot of useful stuff disappeared and it hasn't come back, and the improvements aren't that obvious.

The good points:

• Faster payments are reliable - if the payment is not going to go by FP it tells you so at least you know
• They now let you do a Faster Payment to your credit card if it is also with Halifax (about time banks started doing this!)

The bad points:

• Cluttered with adverts. Sometimes you even have to say no to an advert just to see your accounts It's like ad-supported free software.
• You can't see the balance of your last credit card bill any more, so you don't know how much your next payment will be if you pay in full by DD each month.
• You get a balance and a repayment term for your mortgage but that's it. No transaction information, current interest rate or even the sort code and account number (used to be available) which they will ask you for in branch if you want to overpay.
• No online assistance. If you have a problem with online banking you can email them, but they don't reply.

I've used HSBC, Northern Rock and Santander online banking in the past, however it was some time ago so they have probably evolved and I wouldn't know what they are like now.

Gromitt

naked wrote: »

No online assistance. If you have a problem with online banking you can email them, but they don't reply.

I emailed them and got a reply, but it took them over 2 weeks and all it said was "Please ring us to discuss". I don't have time to ring them during the week, hence the reason why I emailed them!

I've kept the account for the free fivers and online saver, but nothing else (I will not be putting my salary in, or paying bills from it)

MoneySaverLog

andrew-the-cat wrote: »

The Lloyds one on the other hand is great, it's very well laid out and not cluttered.

I totally agree with this assessment, one of the best user interfaces I've seen in a while.