SB: Business Bank Accounts

A question about : SB: Business Bank Accounts

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I'm trying to find out some views of the Banks to help me decide which to talk to when starting up a new small business. From your experiences which is the best or worst ?

Best answers:

• Hi
  I use bank of scotland and the only charges I get are for cheques I draw when there is less than Ј5k in my account (most of the time!) Everything else is free. I do not have a lot of cheque or other transactions, and do most things by internet banking. They do charge for business visa card, but most banks seem to. I was originally with HSBC but after the free banking period of 12 months, they wanted to charge me a monthly fee to manage my account!! I did most of the managing myself. Also HSBC cheque charges were 50% more than Bank of Scotland. BoS is not a limited offer either, free banking if you keep account with Ј5k in it and 40p per cheque you write, but no other charges that I have come accross yet! Only downside is that if I get paid by cheque I have to send by post to them (they provide 1st class pre paid envelopes) and they process it, no charge. It does take a long time for these cheques to clear though!! Had a run in with them after I had only banked with them for a few months and they refunded Ј35 they charged me for returning a payment after I made a fuss about time scales on cheque clearing!!
• I'm afraid I haven't got the brainpower yet to search for the specific posts but this has been covered before on this board, at some length! So a search or a browse back to earlier pages could be useful.
  It is worth thinking about what you want to do in advance. If you need to pay cash in, then the choice is somewhat reduced because you need to be able to get somewhere to pay it in, but some business accounts can be operated by arrangement via PO - Coop, Alliance and Leicester for certain. I can get to a PO on foot from home and work, but actual banks are a different matter.
  If you need credit card facilities, that is a whole different ballgame as well!
  Good luck.
• I have had a quick toot for this and can't seem to find anything about this so... My friend and I are opening a prodominantly internet based company which will be selling costume jewellery online.
  As there will be a lot of seperate transactions I am trying to find the best possible business account on the market with the cheapest transaction charges! Can anyone please help???
  :confused:
• Do a search of the forum as this has come up several times in the past
• We've been with Alliance and Leicester Commercial Bank for about 18 months now. They don't charge for transactions, there is no service charge and they give you interest. I expect they would charge for your customers' e-shopping transactions but I'm sure they would be very competitive. You can do online banking as well which I find extremely useful for checking balances, transferring money, etc. Good luck with your business!
• Ooo this looks brilliant! Who can argue with free!? Is this for a limited time only or is this the standard account package?
  I will check out the e-transactions!
  Thanks sooo much. You're a sweetie.
• Abby do free bussiness banking for life, Ive just created an account with them. You can bank up to 100 cheques per month free, free bacs. Just sign up an account to get the free cheque banking and then at least you can bacs transfer the money from the cheque abby account to your working business account.
• I use to co-op bank as it's ethical and I can do it all online - not a bad system
  Splashie
• I've had a business bank account with the Abbey for over a year and absolutely no probs or complaints at all. All works well. That's got to be a first!! Good Luck
• Golden rule according to me is use a different bank from your personal accounts.
  I'd also like to say, out of the Big 4, FORGET LLOYDS TSB. Useless. I'd move to NatWest if I could, they still have proper, local, bank managers or so they say.
• Sorry to hear your comments on Lloyds TSB. My local branch is good, but then any probs I head straight for the CS manager who is a very lovely lady who seems to be a human being, not a processor of systems and procedures. But then I alo have dealings with HSBC, RBS and Natwest and have no probs at any . Might be the reason is I head straight for the top in the event of difficulties and am sorta on first name terms with the managers at most of those banks mentioned. Unfortunately too many dimbo's stillbeing employed where they shouldn't. That's why I notify managers immediately if any probs as if I was in their shoes I would want to know. Only exception to this is ....Yep you guessed... the HALIFAX. In my local branch the manager is worse than the dim wits who staff the place.
• I joined A&L commercial bank recently, this and the Abbey are the 2 main Free options. Up and running quite fast BUT they take up to 4 weeks to get your Internet Banking working. So you have to manage by phone banking on 0870 only numbers. I called with a simple Inquiry today and was told, 6 minutes' queue, equals 54p before even speaking to anyone! I'm staying with them but be warned!
  Meanwhile there is an excellent money saving route for new market & internet traders that can cut your setup costs for a package of online + customer present + customer not present payment methods involving A&L. I plan to put a detailed separate post out on this as it might be a bit off-topic right here.
• I discovered just the other day that you can connect a Merchant Account to a non-business account. So if you are just starting and need to accept Credit Cards for instance, in theory you can apply for the Merchant status straight away. They might ask a few more questions than normal.
• I have also chosen ALCB for my business banking purposes and explained that net banking was essential. I have since found out that the current delay is upto 7 weeks for internet banking and am not a happy bunny. Applying for this account has been a long & drawn out process. I hope it's all worth it.
• I have to agree that the A&L account setting up process is painfully slow.
  If I were doing it all again, I would probably just open another personal account with my main bank. The nature of the transactions certainly wouldn't alert them to the fact that the account was being used as a business account. So long as you aren't going in each morning with sack loads of coins and bundles of cheques, I can't really see them being too bothered anyway.
  The only (possible) downside would be not having my trading name on my account, but I don't really see that being a real issue. Any other possible issues with using a personal account?
• The only free Biz banking options at this moment appear to be the Abbey and A&L.
  Note: It is possible to receive CC and DC payments via a Merchant Service that's connected to a PERSONAL account. And the Taxman does not care what type of acct you have.