[Erithwc]

Hi

what are you thoughts is it free banking or are their catches. anyone got one if you have are they any good 

im closing one account due to yearly charges don't want another one that charges me as im a soletrader i could have a personal account but i would preffer a bussiness account.

thanks paul

[Lee GLS]

I've had no Probs, You have to pay everything in at the cash point but they are ok.

[Alistair@AWC]

You have to pay everything in at the cash point but they are ok.

Or at the Post Office or by post!



We're with Alliance & Leicester which has just switched over to Santander a few teething problems due to the switch over but as a Bank Account its fine and as yet I've not noticed any sneaky charges.

[groundhog]

I have a santander business account and have been fairly happy with it, but after sorting out my accounts recently I was amazed to find some quite hefty charges I recieved last year for paying in too many cheques per month!! I'm now considering getting rid of the business account and just using a regular current account. 

[Alistair@AWC]

Groundhog,

Whats your cheque limit because we pay in a considerable amount of cheques each month and I have never noticed any charges. And who was your account originally with i.e. Abbey, A+L or Santander.

[Lee GLS]

100 cheques a month.

[Alistair@AWC]

I'm gonna have to check for charges because we easily pay in more than that.

I'm sure when we opened the account the only stipulation was you had to pay in over £1000 per month but the amount of cheques was unlimited

[Paul Coleman]

The Santander limit is 100 per accounting month (not necessarily from the 1st of the month).  After that, 50p per cheque.  Always check your statements because they have tried to charge me three times in the last two years when I was well under the 100.
BACS PAYMENTS:  Please note that Santander do not show the reference numbers that you supply to your customers.  If you have a lot of them pay this way, you may be left not knowing who has paid.
So I now put cash and cheques into Santander (convenient as I live near a branch and can do this 24/7 at the ATM).
I receive BACS payments into a Co-op business account as they do show the references (cash and cheques are more messing about to deposit with Co-op).
Two business accounts for one small business - using the best feature of each bank for a particular transaction type.

[4Taz]

Never had a problem with Santander. Can pay in through any Post Office free.

Two customer references are shown on the statement. One can identify customer name the other could be used for invoice number or house number etc.

[groundhog]

Groundhog,

Whats your cheque limit because we pay in a considerable amount of cheques each month and I have never noticed any charges. And who was your account originally with i.e. Abbey, A+L or Santander.

I've only just noticed the charges, but I'm going to look into it as one month last year I was charged £45 for too many cheques, which seems ridiculous!! Maybe its an era? My account was originally with Abbey

[Paul Coleman]

Groundhog,

Whats your cheque limit because we pay in a considerable amount of cheques each month and I have never noticed any charges. And who was your account originally with i.e. Abbey, A+L or Santander.

I've only just noticed the charges, but I'm going to look into it as one month last year I was charged £45 for too many cheques, which seems ridiculous!! Maybe its an era? My account was originally with Abbey

Before you do this, ask them what date your month starts on.  It's usually the date in the month when they first open the account.  At busy times, before I started taking more BACS payments, I sometimes held a few cheques back until  the relevant date had passed (mine is the 2nd I think).
Three times I phoned them to get charges stopped.  No quibble whatsoever.  I think they had software errors and were aware of them.  It's not like they were just a couple of cheques out either.  I'm talking about being way out - like wanting to charge me £30 for a month when I deposited 70 cheques (£30 would mean 160 cheques). That is just a figure I plucked from the air but that's the type of numbers we're talking about.  Fortunately, I photocopy all cheques that go in.  Also, with cheque deposits, I write the number of cheques on the paying in stub.  So it's easy for me to check the cheques 

[groundhog]

Another thing that annoys me is the new Santander paying in book, there is nowhere near enough room for me to list all my cheques, I end up writing all over the insides of the books cover to record all my cheques recieved by the time I get to the end of the book !!

[scud]

  Santander did have a problem with their charges last year and were overcharging.

  I picked up on it and got the first months charges back (approx £85) straight away, the next month it took lots of phonecalls, but they did refund me (approx £80) eventually.

  The following month they refunded me it all again!

   I rang and told them, but I also told them that I would only be telling them once, not the 12 - 15 times I had to ask for the charges back last month.

   They still haven't taken the money back, so I assume that they probably never will which is kind of them!

[Reflective Property Services]

My local Santander has a great new ATM machine inside you can use to deposit cash and cheques. The cash you just shove a wad of notes into the slot, the machine counts it, displays the amounts of each note on screen, and prints a receipt, cleared straight away.

The cheques you put into another slot one at a time, it scans it, displays it onscreen, you confirm the amount, and it prints a receipt with a copy of the scan on it, clears in the same time as if you put it in over the counter, instead of the extra day it takes when you deposit it in the ATM in the envelope that someone has to open and process manually. Also each cheque appears seperately on my statement rather than them all lumped together in one transaction.

I keep all the receipts and so have a record of each cheque I deposit. Works great for me.

[scud]

My local Santander has a great new ATM machine inside you can use to deposit cash and cheques. The cash you just shove a wad of notes into the slot, the machine counts it, displays the amounts of each note on screen, and prints a receipt, cleared straight away.

The cheques you put into another slot one at a time, it scans it, displays it onscreen, you confirm the amount, and it prints a receipt with a copy of the scan on it, clears in the same time as if you put it in over the counter, instead of the extra day it takes when you deposit it in the ATM in the envelope that someone has to open and process manually. Also each cheque appears seperately on my statement rather than them all lumped together in one transaction.

I keep all the receipts and so have a record of each cheque I deposit. Works great for me.

  Unfortuantly the business accounts are not run by the local branches, all deposited cheques are sent the business center for processing, it can take upto 10 days for them to clear a cheque, not good if you are low on funds, but ok for me when you have a bit of leeway in the account.