Business Banking

richimgd

richimgd

Member
Hi guys and girls,

I'm looking into moving my business banking away from Natwest where I am currently to somewhere else. I think its more to do with my bank manager being useless and not being contactable or returning calls when needed most. If it wasn't for this then I would probably have everything I need.

I also learned that my credit card takes a whole billing cycle to show up transactions. This is very confusing. I bought a new macbook which used most of my credit limit, so when I paid some money into it, it still didnt update the available credit despite having about £1000 cash in that account. I tried to get in touch to increase the credit limit but so far they havent returned my messages. Apparentlty they dont recommend transferring money from my business current account into my business credit card? Unless I missing something I thought this should be quite a normal thing to do? They recommend paying it by direct debit. At the moment any payments setup on that account will probably bounce despite having plenty of funds in there!! Just seems so daft.

Can anyone recommend anything that sounds like it would be suitable? Don't really have any complicated requirements, mainly just reliable customer service, someone to call if needed (which isn't very often to be honest!)
 
I'm with barclay's... never had an issue with them and the online accounts usually update within 24hours, but I don't use credit cards so they might be different. You do have a monthly bill of around 5 quid though. You can see a manager in store/ring etc

Couple of people on here use santander's online option but thats pretty much all over the phone/online, you can't go instore iirc. There's a thread on here somewhere talking about it iirc.
 
Mine's Santander and they are good but all online/phone, though I've never found that an issue. Free banking as long as you have over £1000 come through in a month. Don't use company credit cards but have arranged overdraft with reasonable rates. Also have two online savings accounts set up so I have a cash account, tax savings and VAT savings all separate, which does help to keep on top of things.
 
Cheers guys.

I think I've worked things out for now regarding my account. The issue was that I ordered a macbook which used up pretty much all of my credit, even though I canceled the order it was still authorised for 7 days which was why my available credit hadn't updated. I think its something I will need to take into account next time I use the card, although I probably wont need to spend so much in one go since it was a one off purchase.

My business is quite inconsistent so probably will get £0 one month and then £2000 the next - it really depends since its not my full time job.

I have a business credit card because at the time I was advised that it would work out cheaper than getting an overdraft since an overdraft wasn't free for my account, so getting a credit card seemed like the best choice.

I've got into the habit of using my credit card for everything even though it would probably be much easier to use my debit card since I had the available funds. I still had the mindset of trying to build up my credit rating, though found I was paying it off more or less straight away before I even got the bill which made it quite confusing to keep track of since the balance isn't updated until the next billing cycle. I will probably use my debit card more often instead going forward since its a lot easier to keep track of!

The reason I cancelled the transaction is I got an email from Apple a few days after the order showing the educational prices in it, but it was very misleading since there was no mention that the prices we specifically for education, but when you clicked the links it took me to the educational store with the cheaper prices. So cut a long story short I canceled the original order and after an hour on the phone and a lot of negotiation I managed to blag educational pricing on the basis that it was a misleading email - apparently I should not have received it (they thought I was a student still). So saved over £200 :cool:
 
richimgd said:
I have a business credit card because at the time I was advised that it would work out cheaper than getting an overdraft since an overdraft wasn't free for my account, so getting a credit card seemed like the best choice.
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It is on my personal account (well if you ignore interest) ;)

Not that I'd advise you to do that unless you know that you'll get paid etc
 
I'm with The Co-Operative Banking. As a member of the Federation of Small Businesses I get free business banking with them (and a ton of other stuff), can't say I've had anything to complain about so far.

(FSB membership is £150 a year, £130 after the first year)
 
Does being with the fsb actually gain you anything else?

If it doesn't then it seems rather expensive just to get free banking...
 
It does indeed, hence the (and a ton of other stuff) that I mentioned ;)

I would argue that the group itself is more aimed towards physical business entities that have multiple employees because one of the main areas of benefits is reduced prices for business equipment such as payment terminals, business facilities and solutions, lending/loan support etc. The two main benefits are legal support; 24/7 access to legal advice (from professional lawyers and includes personal use) and insurance cover as well as tax protection, if you are inspected they basically take care of everything for you, costs included. You get updates on any important changes to employee law and various other things, invites and discounts to corporate social events etc. There's a business fuel card, reduced costs for card payment processing, help with factoring etc etc. There are a ton of other benefits, too many to list.
 
you only mentioned the banking in this post hence why I asked if it gave you anything else for the money, it was slightly more pricey than the other options unless it had 'extras' :p

It does but whether that is worthwhile for each person really depends on the person :)
 
I completely agree, it's not for everyone, but it certainly provides peace of mind!
 
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