Do you have an Intelligent Finance Current account?

[Saracen]

I've had an IF current account for many years. Recently I've used Santander instead, which paid very decent interest. I had all my savings in it too. I kept the IF one mostly dormant.

Now I'm about to switch away from Santander, who charge a monthly fee and whose interest rates are no longer competitive. To save hassle, I planned to return to IF for current account, while putting most of my money in a higher-interest savings account.

When I went to switch, I discovered that IF stopped taking new customers years ago. I see they were asked to do this because their parent company had too big a market share.

Does that mean customer service will get worse, or that I might have to close my IF account? How has your experience been with IF lately? I'm not too bothered exactly how much interest I get on the current account, so long as it's easy to operate and customer service is okay.

I still use IF as my main account t that salary goes into etc. It’s just because it is all set up. However, they haven’t taken new customers for years and I constantly get letters encouraging me to leave my reminding me I could get better rates elsewhere.

From IF, I then transfer some funds to Santander 123 Lite when he is where some of my bills are paid from and which get cash back to cover the fee. And then I also have various other current accounts which mostly have 2 DD coming out per month and which I regularly switch to other banks for the switching bonuses. I aim to do 2-4 per year for myself and DH.

If IF is your only account, I wouldn’t go with it. Other current accounts will pay better interest, have linked good interest rate saver accounts or give you benefits like £5 cash from Halifax Reward or free cinema vouchers from Lloyds Club. IF will give you nothing and that won’t change.

Thanks @WombatChocolate , that's helpful!

We have a mortgage and offsetting bank accounts from IF. The customer service has steadily declined over years. The tech is woeful, you can only do transactions during banking hours (eg if I want to make a payment 7pm Friday night HSBC will let me do it immediately, If won’t allow it and has to be scheduled for Monday). Contact hours have decreased.

if it wasn’t for the offset we would be long gone.

I’ve got an IF account now as I was with St James’ Place Bank which closed its current accounts earlier this year. I haven’t been hugely impressed with the customer service in terms of wait times but the staff seem OK when you reach them.

I need to look around for something better but am putting it off because of the hassle of changing my card details everywhere, after having to do it this year once already.

I should add - I think the declining service is deliberate to encourage people to move. The telephone staff are fine when you get through to them and U.K. based.

I have another bank account with HSBC and there would be various times it would be pretty inconvenient just to have IF.

Thanks @CorporateBull and @AegeanBlue ! Bearing in mind what you've said, I've decided to stick with Santander but move to a different current account there, one which pays no interest but also has no charges.

That has the benefit that we can carry on with an interface we are already familiar with and which is better than IF. My DH really struggles with tech, but I think it's important that he can access his money if he really has to, rather than relying on me for everything.

We moved from IF current account years ago but it stayed open as also had savings accounts with them. The savings now have about 12p in them and I ought to close them all down but they never try and get me to.... Will put it on my New Year's list of things to do 😂

the only thing it’s useful for is the ‘pots’ of money it allows you to have. This is the only reason I keep the account.

Have you looked at Chase? They pay 1% cashback on most spending and the associated savings account pays 2.1%. Very very easy to use app. I keep a float amount in the current account (which doesn’t pay interest) then top it up from the savings account when I need it (takes less than 30 seconds to do).

I’ve also got a Santander 123 lite account for my regular bills (mortgage, utilities, etc) as the cashback for those is better with Santander.

Yes, and of course the offsetting, which is what attracted us to IF in the first place. When we had a mortgage, that was utterly utterly brilliant. Saved us a fortune in interest, which enabled us to pay it down quickly. I still feel like offset mortgages are too good to be true!

Thanks for the tip, I'll have a look!

I closed mine in the last year or so, having had the account for nearly 20 years.

They couldn't provide me with a contactless card 🙄on my current account & the internet banking was woeful, with no app. Like others have said, they seem to be actively encouraging people to leave.

I did an account switch to HSBC for £150 & it was totally painless.

I have a savings account which I use for one purpose so son very often. However, I've had to contact customer services a couple of times and they've been brilliant. The set up is quite clunky and old now though.

As someone above, IF is our main account and we continue using it because of the offset mortgage. That will probably be all paid off within 5 years or so. We do need to find another account as we keep quite a bit in the IF to benefit from offsetting, but our other accounts are also in the HBOS ‘group’, meaning we’d lose out if the group went busy as we’d be above the threshold. I had been considering Santander, but comments above are a bit off putting. Must also look into Chase.

Just had an awful shock re IF. I've been getting one or two cheques a year - birthday presents from elderly family members, that kind of thing - which I've been paying in by post because they don't seem to offer an alternative. I recently posted a big cheque that should have arrived in my account by now. Phoned them up to find out what was going on with it, and they said the address I was using was a building that had been demolished years ago, and for at least two years all cheques sent to that address would have been destroyed. No forwarding arrangement with the post office. I'm feeling pretty shaken. Of course, I hardly ever use cheques or paying in slips anymore, so cheque books last me years - I might not have had a new one for 5 years plus, so the address is old. But how did I miss all the letters and reminder letters that their address was changing? (My husband also banks with them so it's not just me that missed it.) Did anyone else get letters or any other communication?
I feel such an idiot for not checking off every transaction every month. But I can hardly go back to Uncle Mick and say, you know that £30 you gave me a couple of years ago, can I have it again? The most annoying thing is they can't even tell me the date that this 'destroy any cheques sent to that address' policy began.
I'm such an idiot.

@DoggerelBank where were you sending them? The Edinburgh address that's in the chequebooks? We've been sending cheques there still. They write from a Leeds address though. No notification that we shouldn't use the Edinburgh address though! My bank card has a return to EH54 postcode on it.

@PerilousErection Thanks for responding. EH54 7AZ. I was told yesterday that all cheques received at that address are destroyed! And have been for a couple of years!

@percypig, @Saracen @AegeanBlue @CorporateBull @ProseccoOnIce @TwoBlueFish @WombatChocolate @chipshopElvis @discographical @motherofawhirlwind Anyone else still sending cheques to the old address? Anyone remember getting clear notification from the bank that the address for sending cheques was changing?

I haven't paid in cheques with them for years (have an HSBC account where you do it on the app and then transfer it to wherever it's actually supposed to go) but definitely no comms re a change of address if I had have been!

I don’t recall seeing anything on this. Possible at the bottom of a bank statement or letter somewhere maybe. I’m glad you flagged as I had some Christmas cheques in my name for the kids that my HSBC app is being difficult about.

However today I have been locked out of my account for the billionth time, call centre couldn’t fix it. Patience is becoming exhausted with their crappy IT.

Ah, OK, I've worked out what happened. So yes, they now want us to pay cheques into the Leeds address, despite what chequebooks say. BUT I had picked up a really ancient chequebook for my personal account, whereas I usually use my joint account. Cheques posted to EH54 7AZ will not make it into your account, but it seems that cheques posted to EH12 1AY will. So hopefully no one else is using as old a chequebook as me and all is OK!

Cheques posted to EH54 7AZ will not make it into your account, but it seems that cheques posted to EH12 1AY will.

Despite EH54 being the address they want people to send your bank card to if it gets lost? That makes no sense!

just an update.
Intelligent Finance is closing all current accounts.

@pendleflyer - when will this be, please?

Two months i think. Coverage is on google news and moneysaving expert has a bit on it. If you can't find i will try to find it for you.