Some decent deals out there. HSBC offering £150 to switch and £50 after 6 months. What’s peoples experiences like with the hassle involved ?…. new internet banking, linking paypal and online accounts etc.. fairly straight forward or not worth the hassle really ?

I recently swapped to Halifax for the £100 incentive, it was fuss free!

First Direct regularly top customer satisfaction polls if that’s any help.

I swapped to Halifax a couple of years ago and it was pain free. I should look at changing again. A ton would come in quite handy.

First Direct regularly[b]Nationwide consistently[/b] top customer satisfaction polls if that’s any help.

Just swapped from HSBC to Natwest and very easy. However trying to switch our joint account from First Direct to Natwest and the service has been terrible. Filled in the forms online twice as the website kept crashing and they have confirmed they have our application but still no information or confirmation that Natwest are doing anything. When I transferred my personal account just a week before I got tons of texts and emails, so god knows whats going on.

Switched my accounts to Nationwide, great benefits and hassle free. Got the girlfriend to move over her account for Barclays and earned us £100 each.

Hsbc “overlooked” the fact that they hadn’t credited my account.
Went in and had a word, an hour later the money was in my account.

Switched to Halifax for the £100.

They didn’t pay a Direct Debit which cost £50 in fees.

They would not pay the £50; they considered it already covered by the £100.

Not too impressed.

I switched to First Direct last year and got £150 for it. They are brilliant customer service wise too.

+1 for First Direct

We switched the shop bank account to metro as they are open from 8 til 8 every day except Sunday when they do short hours.
Even better we can call up the branch and have had any queries sorted in minutes.
Hsbc had me on hold for 45 minutes.

Nearly switch to Nationwide, with £100 incentive for us and referral. But looking at the rewards / versus cost against our current RBS account, once you stripped out the incentive deal, it worked out quite a lot more costly ..

Would rather have moved from RBS bust till there after 30+ years 🙂

Went in and had a word

I would define a good bank as one I never actually have to visit!

Can’t remember the last time I actually went in to a Barclays, 10+ years ago…

Moved from Natwest to Santander and it was totally painless.

Santander 123 account for me – good if you have savings anyway.

Nationwide are good, and offer a switching incentive I believe. Edit – just checked, and they offer £100 if you open an new account and £100 to whoever recommends you too so if anyone wants a link please ask!

Their premium account is one of the few which is actually worth having – £10 a month covers annual family travel insurance, breakdown cover, and mobile phone insurance.

I think First Direct bribed me with £125. It was painless and they’ve been consistently great ever since

would recommend, although for an internet only bank, their internet pages are reely bad. People are great, website shit..