Your experience with Secure Trust Bank, Close Brothers & Aldermore?

shereeki

Hi, I've been looking at savings interest rates and realised I could be getting a better return with the likes of Secure Trust bank and Aldermore.  I've only really had accounts with banks with some kind of name recognition eg Goldman Sachs (Marcus account) and Tesco (Internet saver account).   I'm hesitating as I've never heard of these banks.  

If you can share any experiences you've had with Secure Trust Bank, Close Brothers or  Aldermore I'd be very interested. - are they any less 'safe'/ reliable as other banks?  How have they been to deal with?   

thank you in advance.  

t0rt0ise

I've got an account with Aldermore. They are fine. I've never heard of the other one you mention.

Thrugelmir

All secondary banks that have been around for a very long time. All deposit takers are highly regulated in the UK. 

Albermarle

I opened a fixed rate ISA with Aldermore this tax year. Added an initial £1000. All quickly confirmed by e mail and new account details , username etc arrived within about three days by post. Added some more and arranged a transfer from a building society . All went OK .
My only issue with these types of banks, is that offers come and go quite quickly, and sometimes they have almost no savings accounts on offer at all . 
Whereas a building society for example, would normally have a range of ISA and non ISA accounts always available , but often not at attractive rates .

oz0707

Aldermore been fine for me had a business savings acc. Ok to put money in and ok at paying it back out. Interest paid monthly. Not sure what else is needed

OldScientist

Had two successive fixed rate bonds (the first for two years and the second for one year) with Secure Trust bank. A seamless experience (putting money in at the start worked well and our requirements at the end of the fixed term were dealt with efficiently). The only mildly annoying thing (reflecting Albermarle's comment above) was that they introduced new fixed rate bonds with better interest rates a week after our second bond matured when we had already moved the money elsewhere (serves us right for being efficient!). FSCS protected so as safe as any other UK bank.

Thrugelmir

Albermarle said:

My only issue with these types of banks, is that offers come and go quite quickly, and sometimes they have almost no savings accounts on offer at all . 

They'll only come to market when they need to attract deposits to fund their business lending. 

GeoffTF

I have recently had an account with Aldermore. No problems. I have recently opened an account with Secure Trust Bank. Again, no problems, except that my £1 test transaction bounced back with no indication that it had hit the account. I had to do a £1,000 test transaction. They say they match the account that your funds come from with the nominated account on your application and the destination account number, so perhaps that is not as risky as it seems. It felt uncomfortable though.

Daliah

Your money will be perfectly safe, up to £85k per financial institution, in any account which has FSCS protection. https://www.fscs.org.uk/check/

GeoffTF

These small banks are not part of the name checking service. With Santander, I can transfer small sums to them online. For large sums, it is best to ring them. I get long security quizzes, but that is better than having the transaction wind its way through security, or, worse still, being locked out of my account. It is important to search for the bank in the FCA resister, and get the web address from there. MSE should have done all the checking for you, but your bank may not be happy with that. It is best to double check anyway.

Daliah

GeoffTF said:

 MSE should have done all the checking for you

Best to never rely on any third party, and always check the T&Cs yourself. MSE or whoever won't reimburse you if something goes wrong.