Are all banks crap ?

[Cleverley]

Looking to get away from HSBC, current account, premier account on personal side and 2 x business accounts. Are there any decent alternatives? Or are they all just as bad as each nowadays?

[PaulWoof]

from a customer service point, First Direct have always been great for me.

Any issues, phone the number, it rings a couple times and then a British speaking human answers. No robots, no language issues. just some guy called steve, he'll sort it out.

the app isnt the prettiest to look at but it does everything you need fairly straightforward enough.

No idea what business stuff they off, I think first direct are or were a subsidy of HSBC funnily enough

[ettore]

HSBC have been spectacularly crap over the last two years. Been with them since I was a student - Premier account for about 15 years and have seen a steady decline in service levels but it’s proved monstrous recently. Useless, painful, aggravating, time wasting and expensive to boot.

I’m frankly too busy to go through the nonsense of changing banks but I spoke to Coutts about a new mortgage and am just in the process of changing my whole banking arrangements to them. Breath of fresh air - you can actually speak to someone - days of time saved and they’re bloody cheaper too!

[Louis Balfour]

Cleverley said:

Looking to get away from HSBC, current account, premier account on personal side and 2 x business accounts. Are there any decent alternatives? Or are they all just as bad as each nowadays?

We were with HSBC exclusively and they were becoming really poor.

So we have moved some business to Barclays and they are quite poor.

I've opened some accounts with Nat West and they are quite poor.

We've previously banked with Lloyds. Poor.

Ditto CoOP. Poor.

Ditto Yorkshire Bank. Poor.

We looked at Handelsbanken. They were very expensive, dismissive of our business and largely staffed the by the ex-HSBC staff we were pleased to see the back of locally.

So I am afraid I cannot help much outside of saying that all the mainstream banks we have tried are poor.

[craig1912]

First Direct have gone downhill abit lately, but still OK although. App/ online is not great.

Monzo have been great for my personal account. Starling look OK and I believe they offer business accounts

[abzmike]

First Direct absolutely fine for me. No issues whatever, but my arrangements are pretty simple with them. Previously I’d been with RBS for 25 years but hoop jumping in personal and business accounts became painful.

[mike9009]

Just to add another data point.

HSBC are fine as long as you don't have an issue or need to contact them.

Every interaction I have had with them over the last 30 years has been poor. Their customer focus is poor.

I actively avoid any interaction with them and so last couple of years have been fine. I find the internet banking good and convenient and avoids any contact I might need.

[swanseaboydan]

Have you considered looking at coutts ? They have some qualifications for joining them but the service is superb in my experience

[warp9]

Currently looking to move away from Barclays. Just awful supporting us as a business.

[Carbon Sasquatch]

I've always been happy with First Direct and for a personal account, free. I'd expect Coutts to be better, but the fees are £900/year, so my expectations would be significantly higher....

[ettore]

Carbon Sasquatch said:

I've always been happy with First Direct and for a personal account, free. I'd expect Coutts to be better, but the fees are £900/year, so my expectations would be significantly higher....

Aye, but the financial products are better and you probably gain three times the amount back in time saved on top.

[eliot]

Carbon Sasquatch said:

I've always been happy with First Direct and for a personal account, free. I'd expect Coutts to be better, but the fees are £900/year, so my expectations would be significantly higher....

Is it just an expensive shim for the crappy rbs(natwest) backend though?

[dozen]

I have found First Direct to be excellent for personal banking. The offset mortgage in particular is great
After 10 years of HSBC Business I moved to Starling for business banking last year and so far I am really happy with them, especially given that they are free.

[KTF]

Starling for both personal and business gets good reviews. I have had no problems with my Starling personal account.

[Louis Balfour]

dozen said:

I have found First Direct to be excellent for personal banking. The offset mortgage in particular is great
After 10 years of HSBC Business I moved to Starling for business banking last year and so far I am really happy with them, especially given that they are free.

Sounds like a market penetration model no? Get customers in on free banking and then start to charge. See VHS and Gumtree for other examples.

[Simpo Two]

After 25 years excellent service First Direct suddenly seem to have dropped the ball. Been on hold for 5+ minutes

[55palfers]

Yes

[RizzoTheRat]

I've been with Santander for quite a while. Thier app works brilliantly and I can't remember when I last needed to contact anyone directly. As an added bonus they used to pay me 1% cash back on my mortgage. Same the interest rate is rubbish now though.

[anonymous-user]

mike9009 said:

HSBC are fine as long as you don't have an issue or need to contact them.

I think that pretty much applies to every bank. I was with Barclays and they were fine until I had a problem. I then seemed to spend every lunchtime queueing up for half an hour just so I could speak to someone and they still couldn't help me.

In the end I got so sick of it that I decided the only way to solve the problem was to move banks. So I walked around town at lunchtime to find the bank with the smallest amount of customers which turned out to be Alliance & Leicester. It was around the time Northern Rock was looking shaky, so I assumed there would be no problem with Alliance & Leicester as they handled the Giro payments and there would be riots if people didn't get their benefits.

I was very sad when Santander bought them and I ended up with a Santander account instead.

[NickCQ]

eliot said:

Carbon Sasquatch said:

ICoutts

Is it just an expensive shim for the crappy rbs(natwest) backend though?

Yes. The "personal banker" service has been significantly eroded over the years as well. I think the only reason to stick with them or Hoares or whomever is if you enjoy flashing the card / chequebook - I got bored of that about 10 years back and moved to Barclays.