Best bank?

Enfrance

This is so depressing. A while ago I asked this question and the answers mostly dwelt on the Coop . . . . .. We live in France but a UK bank account is useful.

However, we have banked with Barclays since the late 50's - honest! Recently they have been awful and after their diabolical treatment of us after we were robbed we want to change. But, reading these posts about other people's banking problems its hard to imagine that there is a decent bank anywhere.

So, in hope more than anything, can anyone recommend a good, customer oriented bank, please?

innovate

Your question as it stands cannot be answered sensibly. We have no idea what your requirements are.

If you ask 'what are the best shoes' nobody can give a sensible answer unless you specify what size shoes you need, whether you have special needs, what you want to do with the shoes (go skiing? go dancing?), whether you want heels etc etc etc

Please specify what exactly you want from UK bank account - is it savings you are after, or do you need things like DDs and SOs, and debit cards? Also specify whether you have a UK address since most UK onshore accounts are only available to UK residents. When you say a UK bank account is useful, what do you consider useful?

grumbler

If you live in France you can have problems with opening a new account in UK or will have very little choice. As the only reason for changing is 'panishing' Barclays, it would be easier just to stay with them.

Enfrance

Of course you are both right and these questions do need to be answered. It is just that our trust in Barclays is badly dented. Frankly, we didn't think that other banks would do things much differently.
Does that mean that if there are particular services we need that certain banks are better than others?
In fact our needs are minimal. At the moment our company pensions are paid into Barclays but our State pensions are paid directly into our French bank, which we find gives us a reasonable exchange rate. We only use the Barclays cards for online purchases in Sterling and for cash on very rare visits to the UK. We also have a couple of e-savings accounts. But the fact that the site is in English can be important to avoid silly errors.

grumbler

So, do you use your company pension for spending in UK only?

And how 'reasonable' is the exchange rate? I think you can do better by either transferring money from UK to France yourself and/or using good UK cards for spending abroad:
Cheap Travel Cards

http://www.mycurrencytransfer.com/money-transfer-to-France/1000-GBP
http://www.fxcompared.com/Content/money-transfer-from-UK-France-below-3000-amount-1000

However, opening a new UK account or getting a new CC is likely to be a problem.

Thrugelmir

Enfrance wrote: »

Frankly, we didn't think that other banks would do things much differently.

In what regard? Is the real issue related to you living in France.