If you could wave a magic wand and improve your banking experience, tell Barclays what your wish would be and you could win a £200 voucher NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

As you know we have been working with Barclays and this week Barclays want to hear ideas from customers and non customers.

They say "we want customers to be at the heart of what we do, but we can only do this if we keep on listening to your thoughts and suggestions. That's why we've created Your Bank, a place where you can go to share whatever's on your mind about banking.

To celebrate the launch of Your Bank, this week we're asking the nation five key questions to help us get some answers on how we can make your banking better.

Before we put the questions to the nation, we also got 20 Mumsnetters together to have a think about how we can make everyday banking better for everyone - you can see what they had to say now".

View the Mumsnet Ideation session here

But they also want to make sure your voice is heard on all the other aspects of your banking, so once you've answered the questions (here) please also let us know (on this thread) if you could wave a magic wand, how you would improve your banking experience?

Everyone who adds a comment below will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £200 John Lewis voucher.

thanks and good luck
MNHQ
PS closing date for prize draw: 16 Sept at noon

[nemno]

Really

Thank you so much. SQUEEEEEEEE

[AnnMumsnet]

Hi - thanks for all your wishes.
Barclays wanted me to pass on the following message to you:

"Thank-you for all of your inspired ideas and posts, they have made for some very interesting reading. We are busy reviewing every one of your suggestions and we'll come back to you shortly with an update on how we intend to bring some of these ideas to life. Remember, you can still check out other suggestions we have had and what we are doing about them at //www.barclays.co.uk/yourbank"

nemno wins the £200 JL voucher for posting her comment - well done.

[xuntitledx]

Introduce codes onto cheques so that these can be 'paid in' online rather than having to physically go to the bank to cash.

These could work like discount vouchers so could guarantee only one use.

[lagoonhaze]

The calculator machine just to log on is annoying. I couldn't find mine today and no doubt will forget to cancel direct debit I want too.

[RubyRR]

I'd like online banking to be more interactive and I'd like to be able to enter amounts when I log into online banking,my wages go in on the last day of the month if I could enter planned direct debts from that each month and check them off as I go along I'd have a clearer where I was up to for the weeks that followed. I do have a separate system to do this on but checking amounts flicking between screens fills me with dread so I put it off then I don't know where I'm up to.

[rachel19784]

I would do away with overdraft charges, they have got way out of control and I also find the little pin calculators that some banks issue you to access your blog at home just too much, I have had one break down and that left me unable to access my account - Nightmare!

[Rules]

I'm sorry but I want to speak to someone in my own country when I phone up to ask a question. Other countries do not have to follow the same security protocols as we do and I prefer call centres in the UK.

[Trigglesx]

• Safe deposit boxes back, definitely.
• Direct line to actual bank, rather than having to go through main Barclays number - very annoying when I'm trying to reach a particular person at the bank and I don't have their card. And I end up going through 2 or 3 people who each try to assist me, even though I keep telling them I just need to speak to this particular person please.
• no more marketing calls in the evening to try to sell me a service - I've asked if they are selling something, and they say no. I ask why they're ringing and they're ringing to tell me about a great new service, that will cost me money... lol, hello, that's selling, folks!!!
• hate that card reader. hate hate hate. I know it's for security, but god I hate digging it out and using it to set new transactions up. hate it.
• free coin counting machines
• god yes, being able to email an actual person at the bank would be very helpful as well

[forcookssake]

I loathe receiving letters from my bank trying to flog me credit cards - if I wanted or needed that product my bank would be my first point of call, but getting unsolicited communications by post which are clearly from my bank panics me (until I open it and then it just feels intrusive).

[MrsKwazii]

Send me less marketing material, if I want another product from you I'll ask. Have more tellers available at busier times and rejig your mikes so that you don't have to broadcast your business to the whole queue for the teller to hear you.

[UniqueUsername]

I'd like to somehow not to have fill in little slips of paper if I'm paying in. I know I'm just being lazy but it feels so old fashioned. Can't I just hand it over, maybe with my cardm and the cashier deal with it all? Using a pen just seems so antiquated. And then they file the slip and cheque in a little perspex box.

[MousyMouse]

saturday openings or self service machines in the foyer of the bank that could be accessible with your bank card (as it's standard in europe).

[redgate]

Yes please to coin counting machines! Also, a facility to 'speak' to someone online, when logged into internet banking - a bit like the instant chat thing British Gas have, rather than emailing/ringing up. Being able to post cheques to pay them in, pretty much the only reason I go into branch now is to pay in a cheque.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

It would be to good to be able to deposit cash and cheques without having to go into a town centre, pay car-parking fees and so on just to visit a branch. Experienced drive-through banking in the US and we should have it here.

[twogirls]

What I'd like is for a bank not to charge me when I go overdrawn if I have sufficient savings in another account to cover the overdraft. They should auto transfer to cover the overdraft and send me an email/text to alert me when they've done that.

[VerySmallSqueak]

More branches and better opening hours (ie longer).

[londonlivvy]

Allow me to cash a cheque by post. I don't want to go into branch to do it.

[poachedeggs]

Yes, do away with available and current balances, just tell me how much money is left!

Not Barclay's, but one of my banks won't let me set up our amend a standing order online. Which is ridiculous. I'd like that to get knocked on the head too.

[daisybrown]

A return to more local banking facilities. Why do banks never have post offices within their premises?

[GetKnitted]

I would like to call my branch

[givemeaboost]

Id like the bank to actually ring me to inform if my card is cancelled - by someone other than myself!!!!

(waitrose apparently cancelled my card and ordered me a new one!!!)

[janekirk]

Something easier than trying to remember all my user I.D. information would be a god send.

[OldRoan]

Proper Saturday opening please.

I was on the phone to a lady from my bank when there was a payment pending fiasco and ended up in tears. She was stunningly nice, asked if the was anyone else to do the talking on my behalf and when I sobbed that I was alone she just waited for me to calm down and said she hoped I was alright at the end of the call. Having people who actively listen and respond to their customers on the phone and not just reading a script is so important.

[Wuldric]

I would dearly love a bank to be unobtrusive. I would like them to be quiet and purr along like well-oiled machines in the background and never EVER contact me.

If I choose to contact my bank, then I would like to be able to contact them. I do not want automated. I do not want someone who is patently from Bangalore but calling himself William. I want contact via internet/sametime, phone (without automation or William from Bangalore) and I want availability 24/7.

Currently I bank with the Halifax. A more in-your-face bank cannot be imagined. They send me bank and credit card statements via snail-mail. I have to rip these up unread to recycle the already-out-of-date data. They text me about a zombie account but I cannot stop them from doing so and nor can they shut down the zombie account. The Halifax write to me and phone me up daily. At the moment they want to arrange an appointment with an under-educated financial advisor. I caved once on this front five years ago only to encounter a very young man with a lot of spots who worryingly seemed to know nothing about finance.

I would dearly love my bank to shut the fuck up.

[serendipity1980]

I would love easier way of managing our mortgage and current accounts - any changes to address etc on one account are not automatically reflected on the other account. This is really annoying, our bank still hasn't got our address correct after nearly 4 yrs of living here. It seems to be a problem with their computer system which doesn't accept the layout of our address. Please also stop sending a statement to me and then one to my DH, it's our joint account and we can both read the same statement, we don't need to destroy more trees! We've tried cancelling the duplicate but apparently it's this bank's policy to send to both account holders. This didn't happen with our old bank.