I’m about to embark on the process of switching form sole trader to a limited company ans assuming that I will have to get a company bank account.

Any recommendations for a decent money grabbing bank to go with?
and why do they all have a monthly fee for me giving them my money….?

Thanks

Cater Allen are free, for my Ltd Co. Was a few years since set-up, so policy might have changed

my accountant recommended Cashplus. cant recall why but i went with them anyway. seems fine. online is super easy.

Don’t know where you are based, but if it’s rural it’s worth checking who staying open locally. Here, HSBC and Nat West are both closing their branches. Luckily we are with Lloyds. They are ok.

monthly fee for me giving them my money

You are really giving them your money though are you?

It’s worth asking people who’ve set up companies locally to you, because service/shitness can vary massively from branch to branch.

The name doesn’t necessarily mean much in terms of service. I’ve had good experiences with banks that friends have had bad ones with elsewhere, and vice versa.

Ok, off to see my accountant next week to discuss all the other ins and outs of the next stages, so will ask if she can recommend any known options.

RBS/NatWest have been good to me. Free to start with (2 years?), then charge per transaction. It’s not too expensive. I like them because their foreign currency exchange rate is good (one of my clients pays in Euros).

I work for one of the big 4 banks but in larger corporate banking. Free banking doesn’t really happen in that space.

I think in SME banking you should be able to find at least a period of free banking unless things have changed since I worked with that type of business.

Often the Santanders / cooperatives of this world offered the longest period of free banking.

Although depending on your banking needs cheapest might not always be best.

Just been looking today and Barclays seems to be quite cheap. If your only doing online transactions and not cash then it is £6 per month. They are also meant to have a good banking app. Also looking at Natwest as switched my personal account over and they have been good. Currently with Coop and they are awful. Spend more time trying to login than actually doing transactions. Im swapping so I can have a banking app to quickly check my balance and make payments.

I also check out Cashplus

Oh and according to Coop a banking app isn’t even being talked about and would be at least 2 years away!!

I’ve been with Co op fre business banking for the past six years. Quite happy.
Seems they may go bust sometime soon though….

Metro have been fantastic for us. Keep £5000 in there and it’s just about free. We’ve paid 82p charges in the last year.
They are open 8 til 8, with shorter hours on Sunday. You can call the branch and you get your bank card and cheque book issued while you wait.
I can’t recommend them enough.

Got a couple of accounts with Cooperative which have always been the cheapest available. One is free for FSB members (in fact you get annual cash back) and it’s worth being a member anyway for the insurance. Limit on cash deposits though if you need that so i used another account for that.

They’ve been ok to deal with although were a bit rubbish when actually selling the account up. Took several weeks!

Santander on the other hand were super easy to item a new account. But now a lot less competitive in terms of fees/interest rates.

Now about to move to Yorkshire due to cooperative increasing their fees for cash deposits. They? have an account with a 2 year free period. But of a hassle but the saving is well worth it.

I switched to Yorkshire Bank about 2 months ago. 25 months free banking, saving me about £450/month compared to Natwest.
It took a while to set up but is working fine.

Essentially I think the account has to just be independent from your personal account and in the company name. You must not make any personal payments or deposits (or be very careful if you do and has to be accounted as director loan etc, which itself need to be careful with anyway).

I was also warned about interest you make on a business account if you have a lot of cash in there as it becomes investment income which attracts Hector. But interest is zilch these days anyway so not really an issue.

Rob Hilton – Member 
Cater Allen are free, for my Ltd Co. Was a few years since set-up, so policy might have changed

Through SJD?

Cater’s private bank terms seem to require £5k deposit and £5k minimum balance to avoid monthly fees, but when SJD opened it for me it was just free with £1 deposit. I think they have a special deal with them.

It’s okay but “fast” payments aren’t fast at all as they take a day at least, and the site is a bit out dated and a faff making some simple changes that other banks do easily. Their deferred debit card was useful though, but it’s no longer deferred so just a debit card now, I think.

It’s worth asking people who’ve set up companies locally to you, because service/shitness can vary massively from branch to branch.

This. in our experience – Barclays – varying degrees of crap. Metrobank – much better…

Coop here, because it was free via FSB.

Their Web site for tinterweb banking is a bit pants but works OK.

It’s free though. I just wouldn’t keep more than £70K in there.

CaterAllen here, my accountant has a deal where I have no minimum required balance. As above, their payments system is reliable, but slow. I’ve not had any issues with them though.

What do people use for Business savings accounts ? I’ve got an Aldermore account (0.5% AER) and a Kent Reliance ( 0.9% AER) one too.

I just switched to Yorkshire 2 years free

Metro Bank here for the convenience of dropping in after work or on Sundays. A bank open when I’m not earning money to put in it? Fantastic idea!

Reading a bit about Metro, there’s one 8 minutes away from me, didn’t know much about them but I like the ease of access to the branch with there longer opening hours. May well go down that route.

Hi, was in the same situation about 6 years ago, we chose Natwest purely because the on-line banking looked good (which it is) and we had a local branch in the town (small town, not a lot to choose from) and they were open Saturday mornings so we could deposit cheques and cash easily.
As someone said early, cheapest not always best, first work out your needs, how are customers going to pay you, do you need cheques for suppliers etc.