Bank Closing - Any Recommendations?

[RabbitsRock]

Recommendations for high street and/or online banks welcome. I’m with Santander but my local branch is closing in July & the nearest one will be about 30 minutes drive away. I’m more or less permanently in my overdraft & only work part time so there’s not a huge amount of money going in. I have a current account & a savings account. Looked on the Martin Lewis website but there’s so much information!

do you actually need to go into the bank at all though? I have Santander for personal and starling for business ( very good online bank) I have been into Santander once in last 2 years

Why do you need to have a local branch? What do you need to do there that can't be done over the phone or online? (Genuine question, not being obtuse). So many banks are closing branches that I wouldn't choose one based on them having a branch as they could close it any time.

Nationwide are excellent. I’m very happy with them.

First Direct are also good.

Keep away from Barclays and NatWest.

(I’ve worked in banking for the past 20 years - although not for Nationwide).

Nationwide are keeping their branches open

Don't bother with Barclays, they are absolutely hopeless. Closed my account with them after 25 years due to appalling customer service

Actually you can use the Post Office for paying in cash & cheques ( not that you see many of the latter these days!) so I wouldn’t need to go into a branch often. I found it useful to get cash out over the counter when I was waiting for a replacement debit card.
I was also hoping to find any incentive deals for swapping banks - quite a few involve depositing at least £1K when you swap which I don’t have!

Often the incentives involve paying in £x per month and having a certain number of direct debits set up. Basically using the account as a main account.could you engineer that amount to come in each month via a combination of salary and payment from your savings account? The money could go back into savings again afterwards - often there is some jiggerypokery you can do to meet the eligibility criteria.

Virgin Money are worth a look. It's online only I think but they have a current account with a savings account linked to it - think it's the M Plus account. The savings used to have quite a good interest rate but that may have changed.

You can pay in cheques via the Santander app now too, so that's not a consideration.

Fair enough moving for incentives, if appropriate, but as others have said I think moving for a local branch is probably a thankless task, as they're only likely to reduce.

Nationwide have bought Virgin Money.

First direct are fantastic

I love my Monzo account
The app is very user friendly and I have found them very responsive if needed. I can move money around easily and get a good rate on my instant access savings. I can also use it fee free abroad
If I need to pay in cash (around once a year) I can do it at the PO but there is a small fee

Yeah but it still exists. Not sure what your point is. Halifax are part of the Lloyd's group but they are still a separate entity within the group.

Just a comment. Nothing deeper than that, other than the £50 some customers get because Nationwide have bought it.