BASIC BANK ACCOUNT - recommendations/feedback (esp. for Barclays and Natwest)

[looneytune]

Long story but we need to close our other accounts and open a BASIC account of some kind.

I've been looking through the list on Money Aware website and crossed out those that don't look attractive for certain reasons i.e. no debit card, very high charges for unpaid DDs etc. or that we've been advised not to touch. I'm now left with the following:

Barclays Cash Card Account
Natwest Basic Account

I just wondered if anyone has either of these accounts and could give any feedback?

TIA :)

My experience with Barclays has been a bad one with them braking the law, loosing papeework and denying we ever madw a solution for debt management. However I think all banks can have good sides and bad. Dh had problems with Santandair (mortgage stuff) and friends of ours have had problems with natwest, although dh and I moved our joint account here as well as savings and credit cards and have had no problems. I think its swings and roundabouts tbh

Lloyds do a very good service on basic bank accounts, have you looked at them?

Or the Co-operative?

addictediam - thanks for that, definitely good and bad in all I suspect. I can't go with Santander anyway and did think about the Natwest one as it's hard for us to get to the bank and this one can be opened up online.

tooearlymustdache - can't use either of those I'm afraid (nothing linked to any of our creditors). Shame as been with Lloyds for 30 years (well, not me, I'm only 35 LOL be DH has been and is gutted but no choice).

Any more advice on Barclays/Natwest?

Thanks again :)

We had to do the same 6 years ago and went with Natwest. So far it has been great. If you use your debit card, the money shows as out your account straight away.

The only downside now, is that from the 20something of November you can only withdraw cash from a Natwest cashpoint or at Tesco. Not even the PO. Very annoying but luckily we have two of them near us, just a short drive away, or our local shop does cash back anyway.

I have a Barclays one and I find it quite confusing. The cash points say I have one amount, telephone banking says another. I don't always have the time, or the will, to go into the branch to get an up to date balance. Otherwise, it does exactly as it says on the tin. The telephone banking is a PITA though, they always want to give me a quote for my insurance, even if I tell them I'm not interested (already had one, it was 3 times as expensive and Baclays still owe me M&S vouchers for agreeing to the quote).

What we used, and don't dismiss it out of hand, is Think Banking

It is basically set up for people who are rubbish with money. So, yes, a lot of the stuff they do is what we now do ourselves, but it was an absolute Godsend when we needed it - I honestly have never felt such a difference as when I stopped having to worry about whether I could afford a coffee or whatever, because they make it obvious.

Essentially, it is two bank accounts. One, you get paid into and all direct debits and standing orders go out of. Then the leftover money goes into the other account, which you have a card for. The bank works out how much money needs to be where, so if you, like us, get some stuff monthly, some weekly, some bills variable, some not, and so on, the bank works all of that out and just lets you spend what you can afford.

There is a monthly charge (about £12 I think) but no other fees - when we got ours, we were losing £100 a month in fees and spending half our lives worrying about whether we could afford this, that or the other, as well as wrecking our credit score by missing bills. This essentially gives you pocket money, which is what we needed at the time.

The bank ring you up if anything weird happens (such as a payment not coming that usually does or whatever), you can get texts to inform you of whatever you want informing of, you can make balance enquires by text and you can always phone them up and rejig things - eg we had ours set so that we had the same amount of spending money each week (with slight variations if a direct debit cost less than normal and we got the change in the spending account) and the money from monthly incomes mostly stayed in the main account to cover bills, but one week we really needed more cash but knew we wouldn't need the weekly cash, so we phoned them up and rearranged it all.

There is the odd bit of faff - they are somehow connected to RBS, but not fully, so if you need to pay in a cheque you have to take a special envelope. Also for some reason most cashpoints won't let you do a balance enquiry, so you have to text for that.

I highly reccommend them for basic bank accounts. We are back on top now, so we have "normal" accounts again, as I have a complex system of savings accounts and cards, but at the time it was the best thing we could have ever done.

I have had a basic natwest for a few years-haven't had any problems. I like the on-line banking, I-phone app and how easy it is to transfer money between accounts.

My DP had v.bad money problems aboout 5 years ago. Couldn't even get an ISA. Natwest took him on and he's been with them ever since. No problems, exceedingly useful iPhone app which shows all debit/credit transactions and bank balance instantly.

Online banking which he found useful until he got a iPhone. Plus they are keeping tonnes of their branches open on a Saturday.

Using the online banking you can also set up text alerts - I find this v.useful - it texts my balance every week on a Friday so I know what I can and can't spend at the weekend.

They are part of RBS so technically taxpayer owned but so far we have nothing but praise for Natwest. They wiped the floor with the other big banks for our first time buyer mortgage last year (admittedly in my name, due to DP's records), but still a pretty damn good bank all round in my opinion.

Don't have any experience in Barclays so can't give a balanced response, but would definitely reccommend Natwest from our experience to date.

I have barclays and have never had any problems with it - I used to have a co-op basic account, not sure if they still do these though? I would base the decision alot on who has a branch near you. I have a barclays on my local high street where as I'd have to go the city centre for nationwide.

Also, I would just say that apart from having no overdraft I really haven't noticed a difference between a "normal" account and a basic one.

I have had a Natwest Basic account for the last 12 years and it has been fantastic no problems what so ever

Thanks all. I'll look into this Natwest thing as if that's true about drawing cash out, that's no good to me whatsoever!! :( Anyone got info about the change this month?

We haven't heard anything about that

I had a Natwest basic account for a second account. Have just upgraded to a fee paying account due to the cashpoint restrictions.

Iirc, from the email they sent me, the ATM restriction will be to RBS group ATMs, so not just Natwest but I have no idea how many that is or how available they are. I think there may be some issues with where the card can be used at point of sale too. I was not previously able to use my card at 'pay at the pump' petrol stations.

They told me I could open a new free account, but I would have to apply as a new customer for that. Bit of a faff, so that's why I've moved to fee-paying. I thought this was sharp practice and told them so, but apparently because you can close a fee paying account with no notice period that's ok then.

Thanks again. Well I phoned Natwest and they confirmed I WOULD be restricted on a basic account so I contacted Barclays who confirmed i wouldn't. I have now applied and just waiting for confirmation later in the week.

Thanks again for all the feedback!! :)

Barclays run a credit check when you open the account. If you fail this, then they will give you a basic account. It won't matter if you never go overdrawn and have thousands going into the account each month, they won't change the account without doing another credit check. Just be careful of this.

Thanks for the advice but it's a basic account we've been told by CCCS to get anyway and I can't see us being in a position to get anything other than that for quite a long time anyway. Plus from the list I got from the advised places, it was the only real choice left that we had (don't want to put too much detail on here). Anyway, I'll know more this week as it's already been applied for, fingers crossed :)

Just wanted to re-iterate, I honestly cant tell the difference having a basic account and a normal one so I hope you aren't worrying about it (perhaps I am being presumptuous in assuming you are - sorry if I am!)

I was somewhat mortified when I applied, assuming everyone was wondering why - when in actual fact, it was easy, and I have had no problems ever since (some 4 years on)

Thanks for that. I'm not worried at all about opening this account but have been worried about the whole situation we've been in for a while. But opening this account is the start of all that getting better I hope. The only thing I've been worried about with this account business is getting the right one as I need to be not too restricted with where I can get money out and some other things. This certainly was the best one out of the big list I looked at so fingers crossed :)

I've been with barclays for about 15 years and have no problems with them. 6 years ago me and DH opened a basic account with them. He had debt problems and we wanted to tackle them together. We moved everything over to barclays so I could control it for him. At first we only had cash cards. Slowly over the years we have got (nearly) sorted and kept the account in good order. You can't go overdrawn anyway. They contacted us when we could upgrade it and it's now a normal current account with debit cards.

The phone banking isn't the most straightforward but I tend to use online banking which I have no problems with. I've had them phone me when they spot anything suspicious and they were really good when there was some fraudulent activity on the account.