smile - no longer taking new applications

Stuart_W

smile, the Co-operative Bank's online brand that has been running since 1999 and was the UK's first fully-featured online bank account, has finally this month stopped taking applications for current accounts and savings accounts.

Credit cards applications have been on hold a while but the wording has changed from "not currently" to "no longer" taking applications. This is a shift. 

Everything is still fully operational for current customers and I imagine during 2026 customers will just be seemlessly migrated to Co-operative branding, retaining all the same account details (online experiences are pretty identical now, and the automated telephone service has always automatically listed both smile and co-op accounts when a customer calls in). For many years, new account promotions have excluded smile accounts. 

It looks like Coventry Building Society have done what the hedge fund owners didn't want to do and softly wind up the smile brand. 

EarthBoy

Stuart_W said:

It looks like Coventry Building Society have done what the hedge fund owners didn't want to do and softly wind up the smile brand. 

I'm surprised that Smile has lasted this long.

WillPS

I suspect it was being kept warm as an option for a rebrand if they had to lose the Co-operative branding for whatever reason. Now that it's once again owned by a mutual that's probably not a contingency they need any longer.

vacheron

I'm surprised to see they still exist at all too. It must be 15 years since I had a smile account and I honestly can not recall seeing their presence anywhere for at least the last 8-10 years!

Maegi

WillPS said:

I suspect it was being kept warm as an option for a rebrand if they had to lose the Co-operative branding for whatever reason. Now that it's once again owned by a mutual that's probably not a contingency they need any longer.

Nothing has really changed. It is still neither a co-operative nor owned by one as it was historically.

WillPS

Maegi said:

WillPS said:

I suspect it was being kept warm as an option for a rebrand if they had to lose the Co-operative branding for whatever reason. Now that it's once again owned by a mutual that's probably not a contingency they need any longer.

Nothing has really changed. It is still neither a co-operative nor owned by one as it was historically.

That's true, but given Co-operatives UK have been alright with it under hedge fund ownership (with a few mandatory concessions) it follows they'll continue to be at least as alright with it under building society ownership.

If the hedge funds decided to find a buyer and an offer was forthcoming from an organisation who would have needed to drop those concessions as a precondition of takeover, the Smile brand was there ready to go. 

Total speculation on my part of course.

Rob5342

It's strange how how Co-op were very forward thinking back in 1999 by having an online only brand, yet now they are the most old fashioned bank around, behind even Nationwide. 

GlitterMedusa

I still have my Smile account, not used for much but keeping it as it's my longest running account.
I remember when I opened it in early 2000, people telling me I was nuts because it was all online. I always thought it was great because instead of finding a branch, you could use any Post Office to pay money in, or in the case of a cheque, freepost it to them. It was also possible to use a Co-operative branch, but I've never had to go looking for one of those!

I do hope we get to keep our existing account number/ sort code as it's my linked account for a few things 

Zanderman

GlitterMedusa said:

I still have my Smile account, not used for much but keeping it as it's my longest running account.
I remember when I opened it in early 2000, people telling me I was nuts because it was all online. I always thought it was great because instead of finding a branch, you could use any Post Office to pay money in, or in the case of a cheque, freepost it to them. It was also possible to use a Co-operative branch, but I've never had to go looking for one of those!

I do hope we get to keep our existing account number/ sort code as it's my linked account for a few things 

You can still do all those things, and there's no suggestion yet that anything is actually changing. Only that they're not taking on new customers.

If the branding does change (and I agree it probably will at some point, but do note that there is no announcement saying that, the suggestion about it in this thread is just speculation at present) it won't affect account numbers etc, as it is merely a brand of Coop, not actually a different bank. 

Mrs Z-man and I have a joint account with Smile we've had since 2000, but I'm not worrying about it changing, indeed it would be quite good to get the logins merged with our Coop logins. Or maybe our Coop logins will be merged with our Smile logins. Both systems use the same online interface already, just with differing branding.

GlitterMedusa

I am aware that all that's likely to happen is a change of branding at some point. And I'm not exactly worried even if they do mess with the account numbers and sort codes - it's more that it would mean having to spend a bit of time dealing with a few things if they did.
It isn't my main current account

Stuart_W

Your sort code and account number won't be going anywhere, and your account will remain fully active. They may even leave the branding exactly as is for a few years whilst they work out what a combined Co-op Bank/Coventry BS will look like brand wise first, who knows.

Smile is just a brand "within" the Co-op Bank, and on the automated telephone service smile and co-op accounts have always appeared side by side since day 1. In 1999 it was still pretty radical to be able to push buttons on a phone (phones had buttons in those days)  to move money around.  The only difference I remember was to use the telephone service to pay a co-op credit card you had to be on the old co-op 08457 212 212 number, but to pay a smile credit card you needed to use their 0870 843 2265 (or 0870 THE BANK as it was that brief period of history where alpha numeric numbers were a thing) number. Otherwise both numbers allowed transfers between all smile and co-op accounts. I hardly used either 0845 or 0870 as genuine landline numbers starting 01 were also available (remember saynoto0870 anyone?) Then there was that brief period of history, around 2012 I think when they really lost the plot and attempted to introduce 0844 numbers (soon ditched thankfully, common sense prevailed - and this was BEFORE hedge fund ownership!!).  Perhaps they'd realised at this point merging with Britannia had essentially bankrupted them and they thought charging 5p/min for phone calls in might recoup the losses if everyone's on hold for 30 minutes first. 

They still do the freepost cheque thing, too - but cheques were more common 25 years ago and producing an envelope and writing the full freepost address, including postcode, from memory, always got attention from folk that had to make a special visit to their bank just to pay one in. It's no where near as impressive now (as the address is just "Freepost Co-operative Bank Cheques") as of course there would confusion as to why I don't just scan it in (that's something Co-op have never offered and it's probably not worth developing now).