Which Bank are you with?

Adam

Senior Member
Hey all

Well this October I will be running Kudosis as a full time design business because my current job at my current employer is being made redundant! So with my redundancy money i'm using it to set myself up on the road of long hours, no sleep and caffeine ;)

I'm looking to set up a few meetings with some banks to see who offers the best business bank account, but before I do that I thought i'd get a general consensus from you guys on the ones you use!

I've heard HSBC are one of, if not the best banks to go with for a business account?

Cheers
Adam
 
I just applied to the Natwest and they look really good. 2 years free banking and a shed load of free courses/books ect. Plus less strict on the credit rating side.
 
TomStutt said:
Have you not thought about just going freelance and you wont need a business account then.

It's strongly advised to get a business account even as a soletrader AKA freelancer, mixing your accounts for both business and personal can prove to be a big headache in the long run.

Only advice I can really give is to check all the associated fees, and think about what the majority of your transactions are likely to be (for me personally nearly all of my invoices are paid online via BACS).

Also interested to hear who people are with, as this is something I need to do myself as it's getting to the stage where I really need a dedicated account for business. Would highly recommend doing this from day one, as you are planning to!! :)
 
TomStutt said:
Have you not thought about just going freelance and you wont need a business account then.

I will be freelancing as well as setting the foundations for expansion in a few years so i'm getting it all sorted and in place from the very beginning!

Like Greg mentioned it's the recommended procedure now-a-days to do it from the start. I personally would do it even if people told me not to because I don't want to mix business with pleasure and keep it on a business level!

Plus later on when i expand in 5 years or so and take someone else on to work for me then at least i'll have a good amount of experience and history with the bank!
 
Oooh nice find Greg! Cheers for that, will look over this during my lunch break!
 
Definitely get a separate bank account for business, even if you are a sole trader/freelancer.

I recently moved to Barclays from Santander. Santander offers free business banking, however you cannot use the branches. It all has to be done via phone/internet banking, and all deposits made via the cash machine which obviously prevents depositing coins (if you had them lol) and takes an extra day. I eventually left because the customer service was piss poor, and the even taking into account the extra day on deposits cheques we taking an age.

So I moved to Barclays...which i do have to pay for. But I do have a dedicated local business banking manager, the service is great, and any account fees are paid quarterly. I've managed to cut the fees by moving most of my clients over to BACS payments, and that is entirely free, and best of all instant...that is unless they happen to be with Santander, who will accept Faster Payments, but not send them!
 
maybe i should look into business banking then. hsbc look quite good as they dont have loads of charges and you get 18 months free.
 
I use Alliance and Leicester (soon to be Santander). Day to day banking is free as long as you have £1000 or more coming through the account a month. I think their cheque/ cash deposit handling charges were higher than others but as most of my clients pay via BACs this didn't really matter for me.
 
Jimlad said:
Hsbc isn't based in America or Iceland, now there's a bonus.

This is a bonus indeed!

Think i'll definitely set up a meeting with HSBC and Santander then
 
When I first started my company somebody recommended Natwest to me and they have been great. No problems what so ever with them, very helpful and one of the cheapest when it comes to setting up a card payment solution, even though I didn't go with them in the end. Natwest tend to have some of the best resources for startups that I've seen.
 
HSBC stands for Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. The world's local bank, indeed.
 
Back
Top