Top Bank Accounts Discussion Area

JimmyTheWig

Odette wrote: »

(grinds my gears getting charged 50p a day for being £2 overdrawn)

I make that 23,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000% APR!!

Are there any accounts at the moment with a 0% OD, for up to say...£100.

First Direct? We've just switched to them and it seems quite good.

Have at least £1400 going in a month but probably not enough for First Direct.

D'oh!

Don't know, then. You might want to look at Cahoot, though I personally had serious problems with them.

Could you go with First Direct and "recycle" some of your money through the account - i.e. transfer it to another account and then back again, giving enough money coming in each month? Maybe others could advise.

stphnstevey

Odette wrote: »

Hello all,

Just a quick quessie, Ive had my A&L account for a year now after taking advantage of the £100 offer. I now want to switch because they are charging me for my OD (grinds my gears getting charged 50p a day for being £2 overdrawn) plus there just doesnt seem to be many actual branches my way! Are there any accounts at the moment with a 0% OD, for up to say...£100. Wouldnt like to pay. Have at least £1400 going in a month but probably not enough for First Direct. Any ideas?

:beer:

As Jimmy said, Cahoot don't charge for 1st £100 OD. But their interest rates aren't that great - but not bad considering.

Might want to look at Lloyds Vantage as actual current account (rather than a savings account as most people do!), if you have £5K+ savings. With £1400 a month, you could then get 4% on that. However, think they might have similiar OD fees though.

Odette

I wish I had 5k
Currently like i said 1400 ish coming in a month, got about 1.5k in savings and would like a account with a linked isa or whatever since its a bit easier to keep track of...ho hum. I will do a little more research.

jicms

I'm thinking of leaving Cahoot. Been with them for years and had no problems but they seem to be going backwards with their technology. Very poor statement and direct debit details and refusal to join the Faster Payments scheme.

I'm considering First Direct or Santander. I like the look of Santander's banking demo and the fact they have branches with good opening hours. However First Direct apparently have excellent customer service. (No idea about Santander's). Still confused about the difference between A&L and Santander as they still seem to be offering separate accounts.

Any thoughts on this? Are there any up-to-date satisfaction reports?

rb10

jicms wrote: »

I'm considering First Direct or Santander. I like the look of Santander's banking demo and the fact they have branches with good opening hours. However First Direct apparently have excellent customer service. (No idea about Santander's). Still confused about the difference between A&L and Santander as they still seem to be offering separate accounts.

Any thoughts on this? Are there any up-to-date satisfaction reports?

You are looking at chalk and cheese here - the two banks really couldn't be more different.

First Direct has an excellent reputation. Santander doesn't.

I think that you should be looking at First Direct (for good telephone customer service) or Halifax (for good internet banking and £60 per year free). (But only consider Halifax if you are overdrawn for less than 60 days per year).

jicms

Do you think Santander has a poor reputation or simply doesn't have any as it's new to this country.

Just that Santander's internet banking interface appears better and more user friendly.

johncolescarr

Thought I'd post a few thoughts I've had on current accounts

I have rigorously abided by the MSE laws and switched my A/C several times. This has earned me about £300, for which I am very happy. also, I have an ongoing £15 a month from paying £1000 into my 3 Halifax A/Cs in turn, before it returns to my main A/C. Where I have not has such stellar gains and in my personal circumstances is not really worth it is with accounts paying a highish interest rates, 4,5,6% for 1 year. I'm not sure if its just me, but most of my monthly salary is paid out into bills or savings/investments near the beginning of the month, to ensure that I don't spend it! This means that I only have a decent amount of money in the account for a few days and it seems pointless to have large sums over the usual £2500 limit beyond which the rate falls to pittance. Of course I could transfer money about to balance, but seeing as I pay into ISAs this would be counter productive.

But by switching several times I have got to experience a few different banks and I have learned that service is really important, to me anyway. I was impressed so much with First Direct that I have switched back to them, even though I get no incentive. For me, loosing £20 a year in interest (£500 average balance at 5%, with 20% tax) is a small price to pay for outstanding service.
I think a current account is simply a means of managing money in and money out and as this tool needs to be of the best quality it can be.
So for me, its FD from now on, perhaps this was worth the £100 incentive they paid me!!

forrest339

I read with interest the 'best bank accounts' section and was interested by the comment that the Co-op bank 'tend to be more accommodating' I think was the wording. I have been with Co-op for around 10 years but am about to switch as I find them unbelievably lacking in support and not in any way accommodating. I have at worst a £200 o/d but they see to it that I am regularly near it or otherwise incurring charges because of a ridiculous rule they introduced last year that money has to be in the account for at least 1 working day before it can be used at all. This includes salary payments and cash paid in. I get paid monthly and my partner gets paid weekly and we have monthly dds to pay our bills. If any bills happen to overlap with the date in the week when my partner gets paid we're screwed. If (as frequently happens) my partner gets paid a day late - guess what? Yep, screwed! Yes we should take that up with his boss but being a small business theres no action we can take and the boss would as likely sack him in favour of someone who will roll over and be more accepting of being messed around like this. Yes my best bet would be to ensure I am never close to needing the o/d facility (its 'free', i.e. part of what I pay for - yes I pay for this privilage, and oddly enough thats the name of the account, every month) but when your car brakes go out of the blue and all the other unexpected extras that you try to keep enough to cover blow up in your face..... Even with all that I still monitor my account to make sure I'm in my o/d limit but then they charge me anyway because there wasn't a working day between money in and money out.

Anyone else think that sucks?:(

matthewttt

Hi,
I'm trying to open a joint bank account for me and my fiancee. We both want to keep our own accounts but have a joint account for all rent and bills. Does anyone know a good joint bank account, with a free overdraft facility (just in case on of us forgets something and we end up in the red) that doesn't need us to switch our personal accounts over as well?

Cloudane

Couple of pointers with First Direct which I'm in the process of switching to (impressed already btw, it's a very personal service and they're a lot easier to talk to than A&L were!)

If you aren't paid enough for their apparent minimum income, it doesn't actually matter - the fee is waived if you own one of their other products: a savings account is fine, you get a chance to open one when you open the account (just tick the box!), put £1 in it and there you go.

Not sure about the cash incentive, I *think* from a bit of Googling you can just transfer an amount equal to or greater than the shortfall out to another non-FD account (your own or a close friend or relative's) and then transfer it back, and it considers it "income". So you'd get the £100. But I won't know for sure for a few months!