Leaving the Halifax - for where? Custoemrt Service & Good Online banking important

ramagel

We've been banking with the Halifax for 7 or so years. We're good customers - good throughput of cash and always a few thousand insavings accounts - although we earn them nothing on charges or interest on overdrafts, current accounts or mortgage (don't have one).

Anyway,we've been becoming increasingly frustrated by the rude arrogance of their customer disservice staff on the odd occasion we have to deal with them. The last straw was when they removed the ability to communicate with them by email - ridiculous for accounts opened on-line in the first place.

They do seem to pay the best combination of interest on current and savings account and cashback on credit cards, but it's no longer enough to keep us happy.

Where should we go?

Ideally we want:

1. Good interest on current and savings accounts (sort of top 5)
2. User friendly and effective on-line banking
3. Ability to communicate by secure email (i.e. after passing through log-in security)
4. Ability to have multiple savings accounts and joint account in on-line banking
5. Credit card statements/recent transaction available on-line
6. Credit card not 'disconnected' from bank account in on-line banking (in other words money moves instantly between bank account and credit card just like between savings and current accounts)
7. DD facility to pay off card balance at due date
8. Sweep-facility to move money from savings to current account to prevent OD
   
   Other Stuff
9. Branches not necessary
10. Cashback on credit card (increasingly rare I daresay!)
11. Bank or Building Society not important.
12. Overdraft rates not important
13. Mortgage rates not important (we don't have one)

The wife has a Nationwide Credit card for use overseas and may open an account there to get a debit card for cash withdrawals overseas too, but we don't have to have our main banking there.

How does the Nationwide fare in the list above?

Any other top performers come with a glowing recommendation?

FWIW Halifax appear to be top on 1, 4, 5 and obviously 9, 10 11, & 12 & 12.

I suppose we're asking for the moon, but any pointers would be very welcome, especially on the nitty-gritty of their on-line systems as this can only be experienced after you've signed up!

Thanks in advance

Mikeyorks

ramagel wrote: »

........The last straw was when they removed the ability to communicate with them by email - ridiculous for accounts opened on-line in the first place.

Wasn't aware they had done that ..... works for me (on the very infrequent occasions needed). From their online service :-

Contact by Email
You can email us if you're registered for our online service and require help. We' ve recently added a new Online Help section that aims to answer your questions on-site. Clicking 'Help' from the top right hand corner of the online service will open 'Online banking help'.
You can then use the search tool to find an answer to your question. If you need further help once you've done a search, you'll see an option to "Email our Online Support team

ramagel

Mikeyorks wrote: »

Wasn't aware they had done that ..... works for me (on the very infrequent occasions needed). From their online service :-

They don't deal with "account specific enquiries" just (sort of) how the online system works, so if you have a query about a transaction or a charge etc they don't responds - except to say "we don't deal with these type of queries" please call customer disservice (at your cost) to see why we made that mistake".

If you click "contact us and complaints" you'll see they only give telephone numbers (0845 at that) and addresses. Not much 'online' about that!

Beate

I'd say 2 to 8 apply to HSBC, they have excellent internet banking. Their rates aren't all that wonderful though, apart from their Online Saver, but that carries a penalty for withdrawals, and better rates can be had elsewhere.

lizzie_dripping

We moved from Halifax to Nationwide last year and I think they fare quite highly in your list of requirements.

2. Online banking very clear and user friendly although you do need to remember a 10 digit customer number in order to log in.

3. - You are able to mail them with specific account queries (although I have only done this once and did not get a same day reply)

5. - up to date credit card transactions are available online - although this cuases a bit of confusion with my OH as we have a joint card and he always pays off the screen balance rather than the statement balance.

The points that I am not certain of are

4. as we have separate accounts.
6. Credit card payments that I make from my account take a day to appear as I am not the primary card holder, but I think they are same day from my OH account.
8.
10.

We recently used our debit cards extensively in the US and got an excellent exchange rate and no charges.

Overall, I have been very happy with the Nationwide but I am sure that others will have their own recommendations.

ramagel

lizzie_dripping wrote: »

We moved from Halifax to Nationwide last year and I think they fare quite highly in your list of requirements.

Thanks Lizzie - very informative!

The wife has the NW credit card and the 10-digit number business drives her crazy. As I lose more of my ability to remember things like hat (along with my marbles she would say) it might become impossible for me to handle. But I'll have to find a way to overcome it, as I think they probably are the best deal.

Ahem. 5 is what I do. Then the statement isn't the same as what I paid. Not surprisingly really!

lolarentt

Suggest either First Direct (EXCELLENT hands on customer service from UK), or Nationwide, the latter having a very good cc if you travel abroad at all without the usual 2.5% service charge. Both run cc and accounts online, same page access. Both have e accounts with good interest rates and no penalty for withdrawals so you can move spare cash in and out at will (FD used to have a penalty of losing that months interest but they've dropped that now). We have joint cc and Flexaccounts with NW and solo ones with FD

lolarentt

ramagel wrote: »

We've been banking with the Halifax for 7 or so years. We're good customers - good throughput of cash and always a few thousand insavings accounts - although we earn them nothing on charges or interest on overdrafts, current accounts or mortgage (don't have one).

Anyway,we've been becoming increasingly frustrated by the rude arrogance of their customer disservice staff on the odd occasion we have to deal with them.

By the way I had the same problem with HBOS but came from the other side - use to have all my stuff with Bank of Scotland (although I'm near London based) and they were great - 1st bank with online accounts, personal service, my own account manager in Piccadilly if needed, offshore accounts running on same online service, free overdraft......
Since the Halifax merger however the whole service thing has sunk without trace. No branch, no contacts, "standard" letters (never relevant) in reply to specific queries, accounts split into different online access sites (with different log-in requirements)........the final straw was when they sent a rude letter and suspended one of my (seldom used) affinity credit cards for a £12 payment which had been paid into the wrong cc account (their fault - another HBOS card) - this when I still had substantial sums of money in other accounts with them including a well stocked high interest account!

gt94sss2

As you say, you are asking for the moon in many respects - sadly no one institution is 'best' at everything and one gets the best deals by shopping around.

However, I would agree with the other posters, that the following will meet the majority of your requirements and if you want to keep your banking in one place - rated in my experience are:

1) First Direct (can use any HSBC branch and the Post Office in Scotland)
2) HSBC
3) Nationwide (though I have found them slow in dealing with secure messages)

If you are happy to have more than 1 account/institution and what I do is:

- keep my current account with HSBC/First Direct
- Nationwide for debit/credit card for overseas use only
- Capital One/Egg Money for cashback credit cards.
- most savings with ICICI/IceSave

Regards
Sunil

olly300

I've had some sort of account with Nationwide for 16 years and started banking properly with them about 4 years ago.

1. I suggest you plug your details into a comparison website to see if they are the top 5. For the current account they may not be for their e-savings account linked to their current account they currently seem to be.

2. The Nationwide Online banking is user friendly if you can remember 9 bits of random data. The customer number is the only bit that you can write down as you can save it on your browser due to their website design.

3. They have been very good sorting out Direct Debit queries on my account via online banking and made no attempts to fob me off about the Direct Debit Guarantee like certain other banks.

4. You can have a current account and an e-savings account. You can move money between your current account and e-savings account almost instantly. The e-savings account can only be accessed online and therefore offers a very good rate of interest. (Apparently you can have more than one but I don't know if you can link them all to one current account.) You will also be able to see passbook accounts but you can't do anything useful with them online.

5. You can also see your credit card transactions and move money into it from your current account but it still takes 2 working days for the transaction to register on the credit card side.

7. I've never used this for any bank I've been with. Mainly because I've got money in different accounts.

9. Your current account can be accessed online, via telephone banking and in the branches. The telephone banking service can be poor at times. I've found it poor after 9pm in the evening when I've not had calls answered and they get cut off after 15 minutes of ringing. However this is useful for the times when you can't get online if you remember to phone them between 8am and 9pm plus all the branches now have a computer terminal for you to use.

10. Credit card is not cash back but then the lack of foriegn transaction exchange loading makes up for it if you use your credit card aboard and to be honest you can have more than one credit card.

I've had rude service from Natiowide in the past month (branch and telephone) however if you complain higher they respond very quickly to sort it out i.e. when they get your letter. Strangely the rude service in my case came from managers so I had to complain to their manager. The normal staff are very polite and have always been. They have an 0845 number to contact them but you can find a national number for them quite easily.

Beate

I agree with Sunil. I have my main account with HSBC due to their internet banking and good customer service (never had a problem with them yet), and keep the bulk of my savings with A&L and Bradford & Bingley.