Best and worst banks for small business

[Funding for Communities]

Having just started a new company for the first time in a few years I was amazed at how bad my own High St Bank is for new business. I am still in talks with them so will name and shame them later in the thread. Halfway through the four week wait with my bank I got fed up and went to Metro bank in Cambridge. I liked the look of them free coffee, dog friendly, etc: so next day went along with the relevant details and sat down opposite the clerk. A nice lady came over and brought me a latte. The clerk said it might take a bit longer than usual as they had a new form and I was his first applicant. Fair enough. Two hours later he was still jabbing his finger at his laptop screen and hadn't asked me a question for 30 minutes. I asked him how much longer but he didn't know! I said I would go for a walk and come back in 30 minutes which I did. On my return, another clerk had joined him who also didn't know how to fill in the form. 30 minutes later I had had enough and suggested I just sign the relevant bits now and leave him to fill in the form in his own time to which he agreed and pressed the print button on his laptop. Sod all happened. He said the printer had packed up. I replied, I know the feeling, and pointed out that part of their sales blurb is they love dogs and welcome them into their branches and that the three hours I had spent in there was equivalant to 4 working days in dog years. So that's my experience of Metro Bank for small business. Anyone know a good or perhaps heaven forbid a worse one.

Mike

 

[garyk]

Bottom line is they are all bad, end of.

 

[johndon68]

Bottom line is they are all bad, end of.

Agreed, for every one that says a particular bank is bad, someone else will come along and say that they think that particular bank is great. Lloyds gets a lot of stick but the opened a business account for me in a day with no hassle...

John

 

[sezar]

We've looked at a few of them. They are all almost identical which shows how uncompetitive is the space.

 

[Vectis]

A 'dog friendly' bank? What exactly does that mean? And why would anyone take their dog to a bank anyway?

 

[Copperwood]

A 'dog friendly' bank? What exactly does that mean? And why would anyone take their dog to a bank anyway?

I must admit that I thought exactly the same when I first read it!

We bank with Santander and have been with them for years. We get all the facilities we need and can use the counter service too. They set the account up immediately and we have direct access to a business banking adviser for no extra charge.

More importantly, on the rare occasions where we have an issue we can speak to an actual person without any hassle which is a huge difference from our previous bank.

 

[DebbS]

I agree with Copperwood, it took about 20 minutes to set up a new bank account with Santander over the telephone. There is always somebody talk to and they are very helpful.

Debbie

 

[myfairworld]

I'm a big fan of The Co-operative Bank and find their business account very good + as a member of the Federation of Small Businesses I get a special deal with them.

The trouble is however that it really is a case of horses for courses:

because the Co-op Bank has an ethical policy they do want to know a lot about your business and accounts are not opened quickly because they carry out some sort of checking process on your answers. For my particular business it is an advantage to say that we bank with an 'ethical' organisation so I was prepared to accept the delay;

they have very few branches. I positively prefer online banking and I positively don't want to have to spend time going to the bank to talk to someone face to face. I am happy to be able to post cheques to the bank or deposit both cheques and cash via the Post Office and do everything else online;

very occasionally I've needed to phone their Call Centre and I've always found the staff most helpful and competent. 99% of queries/issues have been sorted on the spot. Once a query needed to be passed on to a manager who was not around at that moment but I was promised they would call me back within 2 hours and they did and the issue was resolved immediately during that call. To me that's good service though I understand that many people aren't comfortable with this sort of arms length relationship. I loathe phoning Call Centres as a general thing but always phone the Co-op with a light heart!

You have to be realistic though. Banks are in business to make a profit just as we are and they are not going to step outside of that concept.

I've heard a lot of praise of Santander here and elsewhere and, to be fair, on a personal front I've had an ISA with them in the past conducted without any difficulty. But I've also known people who have had tremendous problems with Santander which have taken months to resolve. I'm sure at this point someone will come along with a story of a lengthy battle with the Co-op!

 

[Opinion87]

I found TSB to be horrific, Barclay's on the other hand were/are fantastic.

 

[bharris]

We started off with coop but at the time i hated using there online banking (its probably been changed now) and then used Abbey which changed to Santander. All was fine to start with. Then the problems began. They kept on blocking our account as their Fraud prevention system couldn't understand how it was possible to use the same card in Australia and then a couple of minuets later in USA. We had to phone them up almost every 2 days to unblock our account. Then the real fun started with the odd thousand being taking out of the account listed as training, there operator said this was an internal issue (this happened 4 times) each time the account had to be closed cheques written bounced etc. Then we had a cheque withdrawal for several thousand (we still had that cheque number in our cheque book) this took weeks to sort out and we had no access to our money. One tip i do have if you have a problem with them is don't bother calling their customer service people phone directly to there head office in London and ask for director complaints. It was the only way we sorted it out. We closed our account with them and now bank with Barclays which has been trouble free.

 

[Mark Steward]

It's true Santander have had some service issues, but they have improved a lot in the last 12 months or so. You can't go too far wrong with their online offering and local Business Managers can help face-to-face.

 

[garyk]

It's true Santander have had some service issues, but they have improved a lot in the last 12 months or so. You can't go too far wrong with their online offering and local Business Managers can help face-to-face.

I used to be with A&L who got taken over by Santander, used to be better before imho and I signed up as at the time A&L offered free business banking for life, which has now gone out of the window. Things are better in general now with banks as at least you have online banking and payments finally go the same day.

I still wish First Direct (who I bank with personally) did business accounts, customer service wise they are streets ahead of every other bank I have dealt with.

 

[roydmoorian]

There are two sides to Santander - Business and Personal, - they share nothing but the name.

Having said that we have moved from HSBC to Lloyds recently - at least our new manager actually reads and understands what is put in front of him.

And remember, you cannot complain about how a bank treats you until you have actually become a customer, so the FO will not be recieving many complaints about Metro Bank until they actually open accounts.

 

[Matt1959]

been with NatWest 25 yrs, I've never bounced a cheque nor exceeded any limit and they have treated me very well. In the last 2 years they have an aggressive policy of converting overdrafts to loans. I've managed to stave them off 2 yrs running on this maybe this year will be the year they have their way in which case I will pay it all off and go over to lloyds. I think all Banks are much of a muchness and most horror stories come from customers from whom no one ever gets to hear of the other side of the story.

 

[Funding for Communities]

Last month a friend of mine was going on a business trip to Greece. He went into his local HSBC and asked the girl behind the counter if he would be able to withdraw money from the cash machines while there. She replied "why not, is there a problem in Greece"

So many qualifications. So little common sense!!