[colin thomas]

i use hsbc for internet banking, i have no real problems with them other than the standing charges and the lack of any worthwhile interest, i'm really tempted to move, can anyone recommend good online banks? aliance & leicester look good to me.

colin

[*paul_moss]

I use Abby business banking, its free 

[PaulKing]

I moved from HSBC to bank of scotland and got two years free banking.

wouldn't do it again, HSBC are ok and online banking system is quite good as well.

[Joe H]

If you member of Federation of Small Businesses then Coop Bank is free - I use them.
Other then that All & Leic as you say looks good

[garyj]

I'm with HSBC and get free banking. But pay for cash withdrawals, pay to put cheques in, pay to transfer money to staff, pay for direct debits and standing orders and pay for the overdraft.

Just wonder how much extra they will charge when the 'free' banking runs out and what they are going to find to charge the extra on.

You have to laugh, ALL banks are poo, have you read any articles on how the banks operate? I have and it's frightening.

I was one of the lucky ones and managed to sue Lloyds for my bank charges over the previous 6 years. On three accounts it added up to over £15,000 quid. Was nice to get it back  , but they won't let me bank with them anymore  :.

[NigelD]

With Alliance & Leicester.

No problems, no charges

Nigel

[AJB]

To reduce charges dramatically, have all cheques made out to you personally.
Pay everything into your personal account, ie free!!
transfer total amount into business account, or pay one cheque.
This came from my father in law, retired high level bank manager.
And i thought why the **ck didn't you tell me this years ago.

[Len Gribble]

Colin

Will you come and clean my carpets for free?

Think I would go for northern rock 

Len

[Steve Chapman]

To reduce charges dramatically, have all cheques made out to you personally.
Pay everything into your personal account, ie free!!
transfer total amount into business account, or pay one cheque.
This came from my father in law, retired high level bank manager.
And i thought why the **ck didn't you tell me this years ago.

If the bank suspects you are using a personal account for business they will give you the boot, the halifax did this a number of years ago to window cleaners and market stall holders etc and many banks now hold a strong line on banking this way, as obviously they are getting nowt for all the work going on!

regards
steve

[colin thomas]

len, i know banks have to make a profit just as we do but they do take the mickey in my opinion, i sweep a certain amount into the hsbc 'high' interest business account and the interest is laughable compared with a non-business account elswhere.
funny enough i today got a bunch of info on a halifax business account sent to me, anyone use these?

colin

[Len Gribble]

Colin

I totally agree they take the Mickey.

However being an ex-bank employee who had all the perks, subsided mortgage, cheap loans and big bonus end of year and to cap it all a fantastic pension on my 60th SOME ONE GOT TO PAY FOR IT! thank you

I’m with the Abbey business wise. Have consider Clydesdale bank they print money, come to think of it so do HBOS.

Len

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

I'm with NatWest and do most of my banking on line. The only thing I pay for is the cheques I pay in and the paying in slips. I would pay for cheques issued but I can pay just about everybody electronically. (Incidentally I'm going to the carpet fitting course at the NSPCC centre in April-you can't pay by any other method than cheque (or cash)).

All electronic transactions are free. As such I try and get quite a few clients to pay me electronically.

Other things to bear in mind include,

where is your most convenient branch for paying in.
never, ever take drawings as cash from your business account-always transfer into your private account & draw cash from there.
speed of clearance for interest and fate purposes on cheques paid in.
is an auto-transfer facility available.
Moving "slush funds" in and out to cover cash flow problems.
ease of moving to/from your private account.
the potential problems if suffering a tax investigation and having your business transactions wrapped around your private transactions because you don't use a seperate business account.

I don't have a problem with the concept of paying charges just in the same way we stress to our customers that a cheap carpet cleaning price isn't neccessarily the best thing for their carpets.
Banks can take the "proverbial" but don't confuse cheap with necessarily good service and higher charges with poor service. Sometimes people who use business bank accounts don't run them as efficiently or as cheaply as they could.

Finally, and very much in theory, if private customers paid for their bank costs then maybe business customers wouldn't cross subsidise them as much.

(Gosh, that'll get the comments flying!!)