Business Bank Account

J_B wrote: »

Our free banking with Nat West has expired and our Ltd Co is now paying bank charges.


Bite the bullet, or try another bank?


I have a personal account with Starling - has anyone tried their business account?

We've had numerous small business accounts over the years, often with the same banking institutions where we have held personal accounts.

Apart from the charging structure, we have never found any significant difference in the service we received as small business compared to a personal customer.

Why would you consider Starling would be different?

As for switching business bank accounts after the expiry of a fee free p[eriod, there was a thread a couple of weeks ago about that
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5848380

For more information about business bank accounts, there is a link to a thread in the sticky thead about that

J_B wrote: »

Dunno really - new bank just starting out, teething troubles, not easily contactable???

If this is the experience you have had with them as a personal customer, perhaps best to find someone else for your business banking
... and consider switching your personal account away too.

It is worth shopping around, but first make sure you know what services you need and see if there are ways to bring costs down. For example, if every time you pay in a cheque or cheques, there's a flat fee, then clearly paying cheques in less frequently is worth doing, and if you can persuade clients to pay by BACS because that's cheaper for you then that's worth doing too.

It's worth posting a note of caution about having both business and personal accounts in the same place: if your business account gets into trouble, I believe there are circumstances in which your personal account can be affected as well. Obviously if you're doing well and continue to do so, that's not a problem, but for some people it has been.

You could try https://www.tide.co

They are not technically a bank:
https://www.tide.co/community/t/is-my-money-safe-will-i-have-fscs-protection/3813
https://www.tide.co/safety-security

I've been using them as a secondary account and has been fine, development is pretty fast and they have a good web app now too (sterling afaik doesn't).