Santander business account - what's the catch?!

[tastetheseasons]

Hi folks. I'm in the middle of launching my own business and have been looking round the web for a decent business account.

I don't want to pay any bank charges (who does?!) and the only account I can find that guarantees no charges for life is Santander.

I just wondered if any of you banked with them and could recommend them.

Also, are there any hidden charges - or is it really free for life? It just sounds too good to be true!

Finally, do any other banks offer free banking for life? I know plenty do it for two years - but I don't want the hassle of switching or getting stung for charges in 24 months' time.

Thanks very much,

Andy

 

[Jenni384]

I just wondered if any of you banked with them and could recommend them.

Also, are there any hidden charges - or is it really free for life? It just sounds too good to be true!

Hi Andy

We bank with Santander (previously Abbey) and have done since 2008.

Yes, I would recommend them, no there isn't a catch (as long as you remain in their limits for certain transactions which will be plenty for most small business users).

On the whole they have been ok. I have had a few problems - you have to write in very very simple language if you want them to do anything, and sometimes you have to chase them up with a phone call or two. However all problems have been fixed quickly and efficiently. Call centres are in the UK. The slight niggles haven't bothered me too much, after all - it is free! I work on the theory that no bank is perfect and all banks will have customer service issues from time to time - all employees are human and everyone makes mistakes sometimes.

You will find horror stories about them - but then you will do about all banks somewhere.

 

[gavcooper]

If you join the FSB they offer free banking with the Co-op

 

[pete_m]

We've got an FSB account with the Co-operative - no problems for us so far; genuinely free banking, and they even give you £25 per year for having the account.

You'll need to join the FSB first, which is £150 in the first year. But this does give you quite a few benefits, not least of which is a free business legal advice helpline.

We've found the Co-op extremely friendly, albeit not the fastest to open the account in the first place. The online banking looks like it was designed 10 years ago, but it all works well enough.

 

[Azam.net]

You get what you pay for. Santander's customer service is poor in our experience. Staff in Santander's branches will not assist you with anything and you have to handle everything by phone/post/online.

As the previous poster has stated, you have to repeatedly chase them up to get anything done beyond the basics.

When their staff say they will phone you back, they seldom do.

We have issue after issue with so many things e.g. whenever we have to post them a letter because Santander insist they want something put in writing in a letter, they supposedly never get to Santander: of our last 20 or so letters to Santander, supposedly about 15 haven't got to Santander even though we use their (correct) envelopes.

 

[DeanCo]

We have been banking with Santander for many years and the only disadvantage, as I can see is high charges if you go overdrawn. But, if you are good at balancing a current account, like most accountants, highly recommended.

 

[tom1457]

We have had an account with them for 4 years and have only had one problem, the do not accept Euro's paid in cash which we had quite a few after attending a retail show in Ireland. The only charge you for cash deposits if you go over £3000 in a calender month, the way round this if you have more to pay in is to deposit into your personnel account and transfer it electronically as there are not fees for electronic transfer.

 

[the locksmith]

There are numerous threads on Santander / A&L Commercial Bank. A quick search will throw up quite a few horror stories.

I've been with them for nearly two years and there have been a few "hick-ups" as the bank themselves describe them ....... I'd call them "f**k-ups" myself.

It makes you very angry at the time and I have had the odd rant on here about them but on the whole they have been probably better then the Bank of Scotland who I was with for about 17 years. BofS also promised free banking for life but eventually pulled the pin on it a few years back with a "like it or lump it" attitude which is one of the reasons I left them.

Santander banking can be hard work. If you go into the branch to pay in through the machine and it's not working you can more or less forget any help from counter staff. Until recently they would grudgingly accept your cheques over the counter but now they say they can no longer do this.

The alternative is to pay in via the Post Office, but this does mean putting your cheques in the envelope and just hoping they get to head office. The Post Office give you a receipt only for the envelope not the contents ! About 9 months ago approx. £2000 worth of cheques went on a 2 week holiday courtesy of The Post Office (I don't use this method any more).

I think the bottom line is that it is "FREE" banking and you just have to accept that everything will not go smoothly all the time. Unfortunately I think all the banks have their shortcomings and you just have to put up with it.

At least with Santander you are not paying for the privilege of being mucked about.

 

[cgwpublishing]

I used to bank with Abbey and switched to A&L because Abbey's processes were cumbersome and their online banking too complicated. Then A&L were bought by Santander, and their online banking is worse, we randomly can't access statements and tracking down payments using their peculiar secret codes is difficult.

And it's true, you can't go into a branch. Another reason for going to A&L was being able to bank at the Post Office, although in reality this just means you can post cheques to A&L for free, which I'm sure will change.

To answer your first question, yes it is genuinely free unless you are regularly paying in cash over the counter or banking large numbers of cheques.

 

[KateCB]

Stay away from Santander, who appear to be taking over the universe in banking terms. have a personal Santander account - what a nightmare, so far they have delayed a regular savings account by 8 weeks, therefore missing my dealine for needing the money OUT again, then they 'lost it' then they 'lost' another savings account transferred from A&L to santander when they gobbled A&L up.

Next door neighbour got 4 cheque books sent as they had opened 4 account rather than the 2 he needed, spent hours on the phone sorting it out, they cancelled tow of the accounts - actually, they cancelled ALL the accounts and cheques he had written bounced all over the place - when he tried to access his money he was told that account had been closed and he had to provide proof that he was who he said he was, proof of what was in the account at the time of closure (difficult, he didn't know it had been closed!) and WRITE to them to either withdraw funds or re-open the erroneously closed accounts!

There are hundreds of Santander thread across the forums, we all hate them.

Pay the 150 to the FSB, which is well worth it even if only for legal helpline, and go with the Co-OP - old fashioned they may be, however at least this means that they are polite, approachable and human!

 

[Abby3030]

Hi Andy,

I bank with Santander for the exact same reasons you have cited

On the whole they are okay but I do have one major gripe with them; they do not process faster payments. E.g. when I want to make a payment to a supplier etc and there is cash ready in the account, they are still stuck in the work of 'this transaction will take up to 4 working days to process'. And indeed, it does. Other banks are faster payment enabled, and this is my main frustration with them.

The unauthorised OD charges are high, but then I guess the solution is simple, just don't go OD!

The other gripe that a previous poster has mentioned, is they refuse to take cheques over the counter - pay in at a machine (5 working days to process) or post to the main office (approx ten days to process). The pain here is that the machines aren't always regularly checked it seems, as sometimes cheques don't appear to have been processed for at least one working day before they appear in the account balance, and then a further 5 days on top to cleared payment.

But, taking all of the above into consideration, they're free, and I'm still with them with no intention of changing......

HTH.

Abby

 

[DPOM]

Santander in my experience has TERRIBLE customer service, i'd rather pay for banking knowing I can get help when I need it,

Im with Natwest, we pay (cant remember what though) but our manager answers emails to me usually within an hour, he visits us if we need him and on occasion and he's even offered to pop round to my home after hours...not sure if we've just got a good-egg or that's their normal service, but I'd recommend them nonetheless!

 

[BustersDogs]

I have been with Santander for nearly 3 years and can live with all the things other people mention as problems. I've got my regular payments going in and out and although yes they seem slower as I bank weekly I only really had to wait for the first one.

I never bother the staff with my main account (also with them, since 1986 or so) so am really happy to use the cash points.

The only slight niggle was that I wanted to send £1500 to India and after a few phone calls when they claimed they couldn't handle rupees they said the only way I could do it was to set the Indian account up on my bank account so I could then authorise transfers at any time. It was a one-off payment only, so I didn't want to do this and in the end found a colleague who was also going on the same working/training course to send a cheque to who then paid it for me.

 

[Team Leith Training]

Ok heres my tuppence hapeneys worth.

I also hold an account with Santander, but it was a total pain in the behind trying to open it.
Even letters and communication from my accountant where making things painfully slow.
Once you have it, its fine. I like the debit card facility (invaluable to me) not to mention the researve business tax account which allows me to put my VAT and CT aside.
Obvously online banking is a must for us as well..

Only thing i really hate is the 4 working days to process payments. Another reasonw why we tend to pay ourselves cash as its needed.
I was going to migrate towards Barclays to qualify for the faster payment system. Again though Barclays seem to charge.

For now i guess we'll keep banking with Santander.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Why on earth are you worried about the small charges the main banks charge and most are free for the first year or two anyway

What you want from a bank is service and the ability to talk to the same person each time, High street banks will give you a account manager who will have a limited knowledge of your business and be prepared for the ups 7 downs of start up businesses,

When sales are not as expected or cash-flow is in the wrong direction you need fast answers, it's far easier to go to a local bank and talk than pick up a phone and talk to someone who does not know you your business and will get back next week if they remember

In business there are no free lunches, you get what you pay for. Proffessional advice often works out cheaper than free advice

 

[Team Leith Training]

Why on earth are you worried about the small charges the main banks charge and most are free for the first year or two anyway

What you want from a bank is service and the ability to talk to the same person each time, High street banks will give you a account manager who will have a limited knowledge of your business and be prepared for the ups 7 downs of start up businesses,

When sales are not as expected or cash-flow is in the wrong direction you need fast answers, it's far easier to go to a local bank and talk than pick up a phone and talk to someone who does not know you your business and will get back next week if they remember

In business there are no free lunches, you get what you pay for. Proffessional advice often works out cheaper than free advice

You have a valid point. We do have this everything for free culture expecting everything to be top notch for nowt. Is is the current climate which has made things this way?

 

[David A]

What you want from a bank is service and the ability to talk to the same person each time, High street banks will give you a account manager who will have a limited knowledge of your business and be prepared for the ups 7 downs of start up businesses,

Whilst I agree that with a high street bank a business will have their own account manager, this does not mean that they will be any use.

We have a long-standing account with a high street bank, but our account manager has changed numerous times, sometimes thrice in a year - but we always get a welcome letter from him or her. One even bothered to visit our office last year, and he was a spotty faced adolescent who knew diddly squat about business. He thought we were worth a visit as our deposit account had almost 1 Million throughput a year, so he thought we were bigger than we are. He failed to spot that this was our dedicated client account, and it was mostly deposits or rent monies that were then passed to onto landlords, less our cut (which averages not much more than a tenth of the throughput!)

Anyway, as we now receive a number of cheques, sometimes valued as low as £1, so as our main bank charges 70p a cheque, plus the pay-in slip fee, we opened an an account with what was A+L, now Santander.

The main thing to watch is there treatment of debits and credits. At close of business each day they first deduct debits. If your account is in debit, then you get charged. It doesn't matter if you have cash or electronic payments clearing that day. The charge letter says 'potentially overdrawn'.

The other thing to watch is cheque clearance times. We have a separate business and if we write a cheque from one business to another they have a wonderful system in place. On the third day of clearing the sum is debited from the account the cheque was written from. However, inthe account to be credited, this sum is not treated as cleared until after close of business the following day (not forgetting the deducting of debits first). Thus you have to be extremely careful about drawing against cheques that are credited to the account.

 

[tastetheseasons]

Wow, such a lot of responses and such excellent advice. Thank you all so much - I think I'm going to like it here on the forum. It's great to see so many businesses working together to help each other. Thanks again.

Andy

 

[Team Leith Training]

in essence, once you get an account setup with Santander, thats the hard bit over, you can start trading.

Customer Service is crap though, but its free banking, i guess what can you expect.
You get the account, a researve account for putting your tax researves into, visa debit card, online banking.
It works it is what it says on the tin. I'd like the instantanous money transfer but hey for the money i guess you cannot grumble.

 

[deniser]

Problems we have had are:

1. not getting any paying in envelopes for 5 weeks. When we queried it by phone they said they had some problems but didn't say what. I got them today and can see that they have been reprinted with Santander rather than A&L which explains why they took so long. They must have been waiting for them to come back from the printers!

2. twice logging in to see all my account balances at zero which was shocking the first time

3. once I changed my password and must have mistyped something as I could then no longer log in. I had to ring them to get the passwords reset and I could only do this by them sending all the log in details and passwords out to me by post in individual letters. It was the 4th item I needed and it took 3 weeks to arrive by post and I could not access online banking for all of that time which was a nightmare!

4. they don't issue letters of credit

5. there is a ridiculously low limit for same day transfers

Having said all of that, if you keep your banking really simple, do not need anything unusual and stick to sterling, then it is free and therefore good value for money so to speak. On balance we are happy with the account given that we don't pay for it.