Joint bank account? Is there much difference in them?

[Qwerty19]

Me and dh recently married.
We have seperate accounts but no reason why.
His wages go in to his account and that pays for literally everything bills related
I get the child benefits into my account as always did before meeting him, ds maintenence and UC.
He's with HSBC and the nearest is in the city. We find their banking app shite as it only allows 1 person to have the secure key. It also doesn't show pending card transactions.

I'm with lloyds. As theirs a local one as well as the city.

We want it so the wage and UC goes into a joint account but the CM and CB stay in mine as that's always used separate for the kids anyway.

Was thinking lloyds but years ago when with his ex there was a CC with lloyfds she opened and he wasn't aware of until recently and now is paying it off but it has a fair amount on it.

Will that affect it? Or should we go elsewhere.

If the HSBC account is a sole account then of course only he will get access to it via the app. I got added onto Dh's account when we got together so didnt have to open a whole new account

I think most bank accounts are all much of a muchness. We have two joint accounts. Natwest is our main account for all our wages and major outgoings and a First Direct current account for our extra spending.

We have a NatWest account that costs £2 a month but gives us 2% of our utility bills back, including council tax sky by etc. We get about £15 a month. I'm not sure if RBS / NatWest are paying to switch.
Our other JA is free but get travel insurance. That's nationwide

If you want your card transactions to show straight away, the new challenger banks do this. Starling and Monzo. They also have great apps. Starling pays 0.5% interest too so you get a bit back.

We have a Santander 123 account. It costs £5 a month but you get cashback and most people get that back - our bills are relatively low (band A council tax, less than £20 pm in mobile phone bills in total, no pay TV, and get around £4.50 per month) so if you spend more on these items, you will get more than £5 back easily.

But we really have it because it pays 1.5% interest on up to £20k so we use our current account as a bills and all spending account, so all the money for insurances, holidays, Christmas etc etc, emergencies etc all sits in the same pot.

We actually do all our day to day spending on a credit card, because that earns cashback too, and the credit card bill just comes out of the joint account each month in full, just like any other bill.

It makes things really easy because you never have to think about whether there is money in the current account and if there is if it is available to spend and not needed for the mortgage next week, because there always is, but you do have to have a float of at least a couple of thousand to work this way.

Should of said with the HSBC. I used to be able to log on via pc or my phone via the website and get on it.. Obvs with his permission. They've changed it.
Adding me would be the easiest choice.
But its the faff of not seeing pending card transactions.. Im a worrier.
And having to go to the city to deal with anything or pay money in.

Locally we have Nat West. Santander. Lloyds. Halifax. Barcalys.

They're all very similar in the pros etc. As I say it would be solely his wage and the UC. he doesn't even know what goes in and out of his accounts off hand unless he looked . I deal with it all. If he see the money he'd spend and not think.. Oh xyz is due out 2 days before payday etc.
From the day he moved in he made that clear.. And so did his dm that he's useless with money so from then he gave me all the details and his cards 4 yrs later and it still stands.
Then he just takes whatever cash then he can't over spend.. His choice that way

But having that 1 account for ins and outs would work best.
Then CB CM Goes into mine as that's always solely for the dcs.