First Direct - sub accounts

Patbert

Hi all,

I feel desperate so wanted to share my frustrations.

I've been with First Direct for many years (15-20 I imagine), and consider myself to be a hugely loyal advocate of everything about them, everyone I speak to and everything I read suggests that their customer service is second to none. I also have all my banking, mortgage, savings etc with them - i'm fully bought in!

But, for some time i've been wanting to start using sub accounts to manage my money better, and it seems that virtually every bank can offer some kind of mechanism to support it, even if just by naming accounts, but First Direct can't (other than creating loads of e-saver accounts that can only be referenced by number)! I've called them up and asked how I speak to someone to beg them to get something in place to support bucket banking, but it seems that there's no-one to speak to, and the customer facing agents have no knowledge of anything in development. I also suggested that I may need to leave, hoping that they'd put me onto a customer retention team that I could bend the ear of, but to no avail.

Does anyone know whether this is something that First Direct are planning to support, or alternatively know how we (surely I can't be on my own with this!) can somehow be heard? I read HSBC offer something like named accounts, so surely the fact that they're linked (they still are aren't they?) would mean that it would be on the First Direct radar too!

If the worst comes to the worst, can anyone recommend the best bank for managing money using sub-accounts, and also if anyone has switched accounts which have linked mortgages to another account, tell me how easy/difficult it is?

thanks all, I feel better for getting it off my chest already!

cheers,

Pat

Townses

I find it really irritating too, would be great to be able to name the accounts.

innovate

Cast yourself free from your monogamous relationship with a back.

The truth is they don't care about you, no bank ever will.

Get yourself a spreadsheet and manage your money yourself. Use any good account, regardless of which bank it is with, to your advantage.

Osarkon

If you look on their labs website you can see it's the most asked for function, yet they don't have any plans to introduce this functionality.

Bonkers if you ask me, and I'm with them.

rb10

Patbert wrote: »

I've been with First Direct for many years (15-20 I imagine), and consider myself to be a hugely loyal advocate of everything about them, everyone I speak to and everything I read suggests that their customer service is second to none. I also have all my banking, mortgage, savings etc with them - i'm fully bought in!

This comes over to me as though it's something you are proud of ... I can't imagine anything worse.

Their products, on the whole, are terrible. You are possibly losing out on hundreds of pounds a year through having this take on it.

The best way is to look at each product individually, and find from that what the best bank is. For very few products will First Direct be best.

The 'best customer service' claim is a moot point anyway. You could go to another bank, and not only get better products, but also better internet banking that means you don't have to call them as often as you call First Direct - so it doesn't matter how long it takes them to answer the phone.

Or you could go to Nationwide, where you get better products, better internet banking, and they answer the phone within the same sort of timescales as First Direct.

Gromitt

rb10 wrote: »

Or you could go to Nationwide, where you get better products, better internet banking, and they answer the phone within the same sort of timescales as First Direct.

I've phoned Nationwide exactly once, to open Loyalty Saver that you couldn't open online. Thats about it. The rest I've done via their secure messaging service as I really didn't care that much about an instant response.

I can't begin to think how much the OP is losing by being loyal to a single bank that doesn't give a stuff about them.