Tired of Santander. Time for a modern bank?
Discussion
Dear PH collective, I’d like some suggestions and ideas, please.
I bank personally and for my business with Santander (a current and a savings account for each) and I’m struggling with scammers who have tried (again) to get access to my business bank via the phone. The last time this happened (a year ago) I had a right ball ache as they froze all four accounts and I had to make multiple trips “in branch” to get them unfrozen.
At work we use Quickbooks for accounting so syncing the business bank with QB is vital. We also typically carry close/over the FSCS limit if that makes a difference (i.e. maybe multiple accounts. Also, we pay a few K a month in foreign currency to overseas suppliers. No more than 50 transactions a month, turnover is under £1m.
My personal account is used much less (I pay most things via credit card, on Curve, or Paypal, or Revolut). But ease of tx is useful.
I’ve stuck with Santander for all these years as I (used to) get a decent cashback and savings rate. Of course, that is all gone now so I guess it’s time to move, options are:
1. Open new business bank and slowly transfer over payments etc
2. Use a switching service and just hard swap to a new business bank but fewer bank choices.
It’s the hassle of swapping that has put me off, but as the scammers are back at my door I suspect they have me in their sights so it’s probably time to move as they will keep going.
I’ve looked at Starling and Monzo both seem good for personal and business and would split my business choice this time around.
Thoughts please dear collective. Mucho appreciated
I bank personally and for my business with Santander (a current and a savings account for each) and I’m struggling with scammers who have tried (again) to get access to my business bank via the phone. The last time this happened (a year ago) I had a right ball ache as they froze all four accounts and I had to make multiple trips “in branch” to get them unfrozen.
At work we use Quickbooks for accounting so syncing the business bank with QB is vital. We also typically carry close/over the FSCS limit if that makes a difference (i.e. maybe multiple accounts. Also, we pay a few K a month in foreign currency to overseas suppliers. No more than 50 transactions a month, turnover is under £1m.
My personal account is used much less (I pay most things via credit card, on Curve, or Paypal, or Revolut). But ease of tx is useful.
I’ve stuck with Santander for all these years as I (used to) get a decent cashback and savings rate. Of course, that is all gone now so I guess it’s time to move, options are:
1. Open new business bank and slowly transfer over payments etc
2. Use a switching service and just hard swap to a new business bank but fewer bank choices.
It’s the hassle of swapping that has put me off, but as the scammers are back at my door I suspect they have me in their sights so it’s probably time to move as they will keep going.
I’ve looked at Starling and Monzo both seem good for personal and business and would split my business choice this time around.
Thoughts please dear collective. Mucho appreciated
I use Starling for Business and have found them to be very good.
I hit a snag with some USD payments but their online chat was very helpful (though did reveal limitations on USD transactions with them so if this is a thing for you, might be worth looking at some of the mainstream banks).
I hit a snag with some USD payments but their online chat was very helpful (though did reveal limitations on USD transactions with them so if this is a thing for you, might be worth looking at some of the mainstream banks).
48k said:
Stick with Santander but bank online instead of over the phone? Their online stuff uses Two Factor Authentication so a bit harder to scam.
I do bank purely online and use 2FA and that works just fine for me.It’s the 5 calls a day that the scammers are currently doing to try to get through on phone banking keeps dropping me to the “fraud team”, who then call me and walk me through checking that “the foreign sounding gentlement who keeps calling is not you, sir”.
Occasionally, the bank decides they need me to “just pop into branch and verify it’s you, sir, and in the meantime we’ve disabled access to your account for your protection”. Once they also disabled access to my personal account as well.
This has started a year ago, then went quiet and now it’s back. I assume I got pwned some years ago and those details include my company bank a/c and s/c so the details just keep getting sold on to whoever on the dark web.
Anyhoo, I’ve opened a Monzo account and will move my personal account to them. I am alos in the process of opening a Starling Business account too and might keep them both open and slowly migrate over.
Podie said:
Been a First Driect customer for years, but opened a Starling account about 18 months ago purely to use with Garmin pay when out running.
However, it's been so good I'm now thinking of binning FD.
Is there a benefit to "binning" an account rather than leaving it dormant effectively? Any credit rating relationship? I have a few now pretty much redundant accounts that I leave running for the odd standing order or whatever but I could swap the DD and tidy them up if needs be. Never seen much point. however. However, it's been so good I'm now thinking of binning FD.
Shnozz said:
Is there a benefit to "binning" an account rather than leaving it dormant effectively? Any credit rating relationship? I have a few now pretty much redundant accounts that I leave running for the odd standing order or whatever but I could swap the DD and tidy them up if needs be. Never seen much point. however.
If it’s a business account, there’s probably a monthly fee.rdjohn said:
My complaint with Santander is their Hectoring style treating me like a 5-year old every time I try to make an online transaction. Plus the regular emails just in case I have early onset dementia.
The other side to this is they don't run through their preset set of questions and just let the fraudsters take your money. To be honest it is clear your account details are "out there" so why would you persist with the same account?akirk said:
Just ask Santander to move you into a new account number?
Santander did suggest this but said it wont stop the scammers from calling and I’d still need to go through the “change of bank details” with clients and (some) suppliers. Hence if I have to change details then I may as well change the whole shooting match.Despite being with the bank (and its predecessors) for over 20 years, they don't seem very helpful or care. Ahm ‘oot.
Shame really as they’ll lose my business and personal banking, but I suspect they give zero f**ks.
I can see the new FinTech crowd giving the 19th/20th century banks right kicking.
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