Ulster Bank

YorkieBigAl

We recently sold our main residence and had to move into rented while our purchase went through. Where to invest just over £500k in the short term so we chose the Ulster Bank as the best rate. I am afraid it was a very frustrating decision.
We got our bank First Direct to transfer the money over to Ulster Bank. No fee from FD. We were charged a fee by UB as they said it was an overseas payment!! Upon querying this they said as the payment had to come via Nat West it was treated as such. We were eventually refunded the fee.
However when it came to withdrawing there was a daily online limit of £50,000 which was not made clear when we signed up. So we rang Customer Services to find out if they could send over the balance to FD. We even agreed to pay a fee. We got told this could be arranged in a Nat West Branch. Off we toddled to Northallerton to be met by a sea of blank faces at our request. Back onto CS who suggested we go to a branch of UB. They only exist in Northern Ireland so the helpful chap suggested we fly over to make the withdrawal. 
In the end we had to delay the completion of our purchase whilst we moved the money in £50k payments over 2 weeks.
You had to close the account to get the interest so as we had now taken all the money we applied for our interest. We heard nothing for a few days so rung CS. They did not have clue and told us to raise a complaint. We said we don't want to complain...just our interest. A complaint was raised and still nothing. A further call to CS and another complaint raised. The funds appeared in our account later that week. 
In fairness we did receive a call from the resolution department and we were compensated.
What I would say is that it is not like dealing with a bank based in England and don't be fooled by the connection with Nat West. I would call it a marriage of convenience when the UB was in trouble. There systems are archaic and the customer service not based in Ulster and little understanding of banks processes.
We did get a good rate of interest.......eventually. You have been warned. 

Middle_of_the_Road

It has previously been discussed on here that Ulster Bank are very slow dealing with account opening, and the difficulty in withdrawing from their savings account.
You could have had a similar experience trying to move large daily amounts, with almost any bank, as you did with Ulster though. It's always worth checking the limits for withdrawal before making large deposits.
All banks have a daily limit for faster payments, but I thought Ulster's was higher than 50k. Some are much lower though.
Many times peoples accounts are blocked when trying to move money, and it is now quite normal having to prove where the money came from, and to where it's going. Some have been blocked for weeks with no access to funds or banking facilities at all. Glad they eventually resolved the situation and compensated for the inconvenience caused.