Best & Worst Online Banking experience 2 February at 5:33AM in Budgeting & bank accounts 24 replies 2.2K views

seatbeltnoob

Halifax, the online banking service on halifax is absolutely brilliant.

The website is super fast and response. Both desktop browser and android app function really well. All the functions are easy to locate and intuitive. Statement downloads are excellet.

the halifax is my personal account and I made some ebay sales which deposited it to my personal account. I needed to do a quick check to find out how much ebay deposited into the halifax on my tax return.

I just opened halifax account, click on transaction search, entered the date range (full tax year), and type adyen as the search query and it returned all the transactions in order and even gave me a total at the bottom of the results adding up all the amounts.

It's always a joy to use haliax.

natwest.. on the other hand. it was my first business account and I had it for 20 years. I was an early adopter for online banking and I have to say - the online banking interface and functionality has not changed for around 18 years - just recently they seemd to have done a refresh (same functionalty, just a design tweak).

it's terrible, natwest are just stuck in their ways - ctill doing those horrible a5 statemetnts in horrible font (i imagine).

PloughmansLunch

I don’t think any are perfect and ideally I’d like to cobble together features from several, but in order of preference:

Chase is probably my favourite to use overall as it’s got a pretty intuitive user interface and is very easy to use. If I was able to drill down for more detail on existing standing orders I’d have no complaints at all.

Barclays app has a fantastic calendar function where you can see any payments due for the current and next month in a visual interpretation which I find great for planning. Almost everything is self-contained within the app which is a plus for me, and navigation is fairly intuitive. It’s littered with product ads and suggestions which loses a bit of the shine for me.

Lloyds Banking Group’s online offerings are decent and relatively clear to navigate, and their apps are less effective but do the job in a slightly clunky way. Payee or account nicknames would be a welcome feature for people with quite a few current and savings accounts.

Santander is quite dull to use but tool-like and functional. Very much slap bang in the middle of my good-or-bad list.

HSBC is very basic and limited functionality, any viewing of info or applying for products takes you to the online site for additional sign-in (and back again when you return to the app) which is a bit daft. I don’t know why they don’t have a similar system to First Direct which seems much faster and slicker, although the hipster illustrations and interface is a bit too matey for me. 

I’ve only used it once but the Nationwide app seems alright and pretty modern, but the online version is like some long-forgotten Geocities website dredged up from a dusty corner of the internet. The requirements for card readers for just about anything seems a bit of a quirky throwback nowadays. I set up a few standing orders and made some payments, and had to provide various long-winded flavours of codes about 8 times during the same 15 minute securely logged-in session which surely can’t be the best way of doing things.

My wife has used NatWest for years and I’d have to echo your comments. See above for card reader tech too.

kaMelo

And this is why no one system can suit everyone as I am more than happy with RBS/NatWest online functionality. Not that there is anything wrong with Halifax/Lloyds/BOS either but I don't see any significant difference in functionality between the two.

I'm also one who prefers a card reader over one time SMS messages. My mobile signal is poor at home and a card reader is more secure.

Rob5342

I use Monzo and that's exactly how an app should be in my experience. I can quickly tap through to everything and it nicely shows all upcoming payments.

The worst I had was Nationwides app as you could hardly do anything in it and you needed a card reader for lots of things.

MikeJXE

I'm perfectly happy with Santander for my current account and Halifax credit card

Both facial recognition on my iPhone and simple to use 

I like the search feature in Santander as I can look back years 

Both are equally professional on customer services 

penners324

I found Halifax pretty basic and not well designed. Santander was just a nightmare to use.

Best I've had is Starling

Rob5342

The apps from the new banks like Starling and Monzo blow the ones from the high street banks out of the water.

I've used the Santander one before, I found it very minimal but what it offered was quite easy to use.

Middle_of_the_Road

Best &worst online banking experience

Best-

Halifax and Lloyds are exceptionally user friendly.

Natwest is basic but functional.

Not banks, but YBS, Saga and Coventry are clear and easy to navigate.

Worst-

Nationwide and Santander are both messy and convoluted.

35har1old

Worst bank for its app and online profile is Barclays

If you are new to Barclays only way of opening a sole account is on the app  our in branch so they say. But after downloading app it crashes. If you get to the stage of trying for a switch before you have entered any details of your old account it comes up with a page telling you the your old account can't be switched. But you can do a paper switch

Barclays Bank Account application

Close

We're sorry...

You can't open a current account between 11:30pm and 06:00am.

Please log in after 06:00am to complete your application. We're sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

Update still unable open account online 03-02-23 13.00

Managed to open by app

NOT 24/7 Banking  more like 16.5/7 oh never tried at weekends 

35har1old

Middle_of_the_Road said:

Best &worst online banking experience

Best-

Halifax and Lloyds are exceptionally user friendly.

Natwest is basic but functional.

Not banks, but YBS, Saga and Coventry are clear and easy to navigate.

Worst-

Nationwide and Santander are both messy and convoluted.

Halifax and Lloyds i  agree are user friendly but i don't  no why you lumped in Nationwide with Santander I know with LLoyds that you can select not to have the telephone opt sent i would never dream of not having a opt sent Nationwide do not give you that option,

Santander had a pretty strong security setup but they sacrificed this for speed. You used  to see a image and a phrase which you had selected. This was a sign that you where in a secure site. Now all you need is a customer no: and a five digit security code which was part of the original security setup. There is no 

Two-factor Authentication

They only use OTP when you setup a new payment.

The other thing is they have a page when you are logging out named log details it used to show the details of the transactions that you carried out showing the amounts now you only see amounts if you make a internal transfer any other transactions are listed as search with no details shown.

Payee list is as bad. Used to select from this list to make one of payments each had a different mandate No: the numbers are still there but you now have to pay these through pay existing payee which only show sort code and account no: the list alters every time you make a payment putting the last payee to the top so if you have large number of payees you have to trawl through this list to find the next payee that you won't 

Cut corners on security to save time but increased the time spent on making payments

mikeylpool

PloughmansLunch said:

I don’t think any are perfect and ideally I’d like to cobble together features from several, but in order of preference:

Chase is probably my favourite to use overall as it’s got a pretty intuitive user interface and is very easy to use. If I was able to drill down for more detail on existing standing orders I’d have no complaints at all.

Interesting seeing this as for me the Chase app is possibly the worst app I have ever used and I'm only at it at the moment because of the 1% cashback. To many data updates going on and lots of visible loading/refreshing of data that you just don't see in the other apps.
This is a real shame for me, as if the app was better this would be probably the best all-rounder for me in terms of current /easy access savings as they seem to be on the ball for interest increases tracking BoE changes.

The best apps for me/online are by far the Lloyds group (halifax, Lloyds etc) but their savings products aren't competitive enough anymore.