Recommendations/gripes re business bank accounts pleeeease.

[redadmiral]

Am about to open one and would go for Abbey as they are free, but have heard some horror stories on here about their customer service since they were taken over by Santander.

Would love some feedback on good or bad experiences with any banks before I take the plunge. Thanks

Bump?

Hi there/.... I have a business bank account w abbey, have had for about ?5? years.... haven't had any problems w them at all. Love the fact that its free, changed from lloyds tsb as they were fleecing me each month to keep my account in credit. I would go for it, and if you have problems, challenge them and them change again in necessary.....
Hope that helps

I have a Nat West personal account, use a business account and have recently become the signatory on a charity account. I have been very pleased with them over the years: they have a good branch network with helpful, courteous staff and a call centre that does actually do its job.
However, there have been a couple of glitches recently that they have not resolved satisfactorily. I complained to the girl on the desk and she said that there have been changes (not for the better) in the back office functions.

When considering various banks, I suggest that you look at their computer banking systems because they are all slightly different. For example, in NW I can set up a batch of payments but it is not very flexible in letting me edit the list. In Lloyds I cannot batch - they appear as separate items on the bank statement. Lloyds also has a transaction cap of £10k and a daily cap on payments of £30k which is pathetic when you need to pay the PAYE or VAT.

Thanks everyone.

I am v impressed with Alliance and Leicester commercial bank. their online system is really good (it used to be rubbish - they've made it better). no branch network but you can pay in at the post office.

a&l also do free banking for small businesses (

I looked at abbey and they didn't deal with change or anything in branch, you could use the cash machine or online, but don't dare darken their door.

I went with the Royal bank of Scotland, free banking for a year then only charged for certain things, had an actual real business bank manager that I could phone and you could also phone the branch and speak to a real person. They even phoned me to tell me I had gone over drawn and could I put money in that day so they wouldn't have to charge me.

Thanks again.

Scramble, I don't yet know what sort of charges I am likely to incur. (For example, I'm starting a children's photography business, so I'm imagining two or so jobs per week, so not hundreds of transactions for small items, if that makes sense.)

Do you think that would make it less expensive to use a fee-paying bank?

Probably best to make use of any free banking you v=can get alomst all banks will do this for first year.

You need to think about how your clients will pay and if you need to be able to accept credit cards, you probably can't do that with the abbey free forever account, but that account would be great if you are paying in checks and notes at the ATM if you can do that.

Don't go for fee paying bank, they are a complete pita. Another good thing about abbey is that alongside your business account, you can have something called a business reserve account, which mays a good rate of interest.... then any excess that you may have in your business a/c (!), you can shift across to the business reserve and it's like a business saving account. You can do it all online, which I like, and it transfers in real time. No waiting 3 days or anything.

(PAYS a good rate of interest....)