The Future of Basic Banking?

Baron_Greenback_2

http://www.thinkbanking.co.uk

Having just seen this i'm a bit worried this could be the way the banking industry wants to move forward for basic accounts...

For your £12.50 per month (not forgetting a £25 set up fee) you get a bank account with a whole host of exciting features including a shiny maestro card and errr well thats pretty much it actually!

yes you can pay direct debits and standing orders but everything is done through your own "money manager" and it doesn't even offer internet banking!

Completely inferior to most FREE basic bank accounts on the market but I suppose this form of "hand holding, cotton wool banking" could be of interest to anyone who is not used to modern banking.

Rafter

Baron,

I guess if you are incurring £50 in bank charges each month, paying someone to organise your finances and make sure that there is enough money in your 'salary' account to pay essesntial bills is no bad thing.

However, all this really is is a linked bank account and a Maestro card with a 'zero' floor limit. This means the card will automatically be declined unless it can go online to confirm you have sufficient funds available and, unlike a conventional current account' it won't allow you to go into unauthorised overdraft and incur bank charges.

No bad thing, but could be difficult if you are stuck at a petrol station with no way to pay.

You could achieve the same thing yourself though with a prepaid debit card and pay a lot less than £150 a year.

R.

PBA

Actually this looks like a far better product than a prepaid debit card, as you can pay direct debits from it as well, and they'll hold money back to make sure your DDs always get paid. Not a good product for people who can run their bank account correctly, but even if you're only being charged on your bank account every other month this account would probably be cheaper, especially as an unpaid DD generally gets you a charge from the bank and another charge from the company the payment was meant to go to.

spinningsheep

The downside is that the "Maestro card" issues with the account registers as a prepaid card with online verification sytems (URU) and therefore is declined. i think this is down to the provider of the actual card being a provider of prepaid card solutions too.