Free Banking - for ever ??

[Merlin]

Hi Guys. Many of the daily's over the past couple of weeks have been advertising ABBEY and their Business Bank Account.

As long as you stay within their transaction monthly limits then you do not pay bank charges. Got to be a bargain, but is there a catch that I am missing.

The transaction limits per month are:
Deposits 20 above that £0.50 per item
Cash and cheque withdrawals 50 then £0.50 per item
Cheques deposited 100 then £0.50 per item
Cash deposits £3000 then £0.50 per £100
Automated BACS credits, Debit card payments, DD and SO.. No limit

This is a direct bank, so you do not get a face to face counter type service. Deposits are made via the ATM's or by post.

That does not present any problem for me
On questioning my own High st bank for a renegotiation of charges they said "Sorry, whilst we are losing people to ABBEY, at the moment we cannot give you free banking".

Any advice from you financial gurus would help please.

[JFeig]

And what will you do in a year when they change the rates or remove the "FREE BANKING"????

[Merlin]

Hi Jerome
This is the one point that they are advertising. Free Banking for Life - as long as you stay within the transactions numbers. If you go over the stated number then you only pay for the number that you are over. The next month you are back to Free banking.

I am sure the Banking Ombudsman and Trading Standards would have something to say if I had signed up to Free banking and ABBEY decide to change it.

But hey !! even if they do change the rates in one years time. I will have benefitted from 12 months of free banking and saved a lot of money.

[JFeig]

The system might be ok for an individual. I think the free of service charge limits (deposits -20-, checks-50-, check deposits-100-) are a bit small for most businesses.
At £.50 per....... that is a lot more than our $.15 per.

[John]

This is a link to the Abbey site where you can find all the details.
http://www.anbusiness.com/services/char ... l#freebank

I'm not sure that I understand "Deposits 20 above that £0.50 per item".
Does this mean that there is a charge of £0.50 for each deposit over the 20, or £0.50 for each item within each deposit above the 20th?

It looks like your deposits are devoid of human interface: -

Cash deposits made at cash machines located at Abbey branches. Only banknotes can be deposited.

I think I will show the Abbey terms to my own bank and see if they would attempt to match it.

[Merlin]

Here is another link:
www.abbey.com/business

John I too queried this. They gave me: "If you deposited 100 cheques in one month then there is no charge. However, if you deposited 102 cheques then you would pay £1.00 (£0.50 per cheque over the 100).

Yes, it is a direct bank, so no counter service. Banknotes are paid into the ATM machine via the keyboard and a 'night safe' type arrangement, after completing the paying in slip. Cheques are either sent off by post, or put into (in the case with our local ABBEY) the 'Cheque paying in box' inside the premises.

As stated earlier, I did try to negotiate new rates with my existing bank - HSBC - and got no joy at all..

For me, being a small retail gallery/framing outlet and hovering (at the moment) just below the VAT threshold. I do think my charges are particularly high, especially for that one time per week visit to 'pay in' over the counter. Each visit is costing me on average £6.00 for a 3 minute session. I wouldnt mind charging my customers that, yet somehow I do not think they would pay!!!

Yet, by ABBEY's statement, I will get exactly the same. A cheque book, cheque card(s) and monthly statements. Bottom line for me, it is all I need and it is free.

I just wondered if I had missed something as the saying goes "Nothing in life is free"

[SquareFrames]

Hi Folks,

Like John I am going to show my bank the details of Abbey. The bank we use, 'basically for convienience' I may add as it is just 20 feet opposite our door, are charging a huge amount for our transactions and simply getting away with it. My wife experimented saving up cheques, etc. and banking once a week, but they seem to charge on a total monetary figure, not the transaction total, so it didnt matter. As we speak my wife is going through old statements to find out how much we have been charged over the past 2 or 3 years.

Banks in small provincial towns like ours are going through major changes, personel, policy, practices, etc., but having said that we have a great relationship with our 'business manager' (for the time being), but goodness knows who this will be by the end of the month, or the end of the year, the bank seems to change this position on a regular basis, and they are so damn young, my wife says at time she feels like wiping behind the poor chap's ears. Since we have been banking with them, we have had no fewer than 7 business managers, and 3 or 4 actual bank managers, is it any wonder people seem to be leaving and banking elsewhere.

One other bank we are looking at is Nationwide, they offer a £10 per month charge as long as you keep within their set limits, etc. Finding a Nationwide close to us, apart from Belfast or some of the larger towns is the only stumbling block.

Wonder should I try keeping an old money box, within a slightly larger money box, both boxes being kept within an old tin box like Arkwright, and my notes on a chain?

Steven

[Jo The Framer]

I've just been sent some leaflets by the Alliance & Leicester, advertising their free business banking account. The only thing that isn't free is depositing more than £1000 in cash a month, but even then the charges are lower. With a week of free banking at HSBC to go, I have been looking at other accounts with interest. Problem with the Abbey National one is that I don't have a branch near me for the occasional paying in of cheques etc, so this one caught my interest as it is closer.

The website is www.free-not-fee.co.uk if it helps anyone else. I haven't found any catches yet, so let me know if you do!

[evanstheframe]

Just wish I had some money to put in a bank. Steven, when the notes on your chain get to heavy to carry I will send you the details of my deposit account.

Lyn (ETF)

[Mike the framer]

Great subject - just learned a lot - while we are on the subject of money (ugh) anybody found a way to save money on those horrific card sales? :

[John]

Hi Mike welocme to the forum.

I believe that some trade associations have negotiated special deals for their members.

Could it be that the FATG is one of them?

Check with Steven (SquareFrames), he is sure to know.

John

[Simon GPS]

Gidday All

Just registered yesterday - I'm an Aussie framer and I think Mike must have read my mind - I was interested to find out what rates framers in the UK pay on credit card sales compared to our rates in Australia.

A decent rate down here seems to be 1.5% - 2.0% on Visa/Mastercard - 3%-4% for Amex and Diners.

Would be very interested to find our some of your rates- and it may also help you to share the info so you can negotiate with the banks.

[John]

Hi Simon GPS,

Nice to hear from 'Down Under'

We are paying 2.95%

On a paralell issue, we were persuaded to sign up for Amex about 6 months ago. Since then we have not been offered a single American Express card. Are people still using them?

[Mike the framer]

Hi John,

Funny you should bring that up - I signed to American Express over a year ago and never have had a single card offered from them. Can handle the expense of the debit cards but when a Mastercard etc comes out I come over all peculiar (not particularly unusual for me really)

Mikes wife Jacquie

[Simon GPS]

Yes I agree Amex usage is very limited - Additionally the laws were changed in Aus quite recently allowing us to oncharge the card fee to our customers. I find when you tell people you are going to charge them the extra 3% Amex processing fee another card comes out promptly. Are you allowed to oncharge these fees in the UK??

[foxyframer]

I thought I would give this topic an airing after a two year gap.

Wife is away,daughter's on nights, son's on the razz and I am catching up on mount-cutting for stock. How sad is that - Saturday night.

Just made an executive decision - notice for gallery - 'Personal cheques no longer accepted'. Had none so far this year. Everyone pays by card nowadays. Large amounts by card OK; same by cheque makes me nervous. Over the years there have been one or two 'bouncers'. Never a problem with a card. That gets sorted at authorization time. Still take company and authority cheques.

We accept Amex and although we only get one or two a week I feel it's vital to have the facility, even if the charges are a bit more.

Alliance & Leics are constantly sending info. Anyone switched over to them from the 'big four' yet ? On the face of it, it looks a good deal.

[Not your average framer]

We are in a small town in rural Devon, although our town has been o.k., there have been a lot of similar sized towns in our area where the local bank branches have completely closed down leaving these towns without any banks at all. This has been making us think about how to cope with this, if it happens here.

While thinking about this we were approached by The Federation of Small Businesses. They not only have a special deal for banking through the Co-operative bank, offering paying in and drawing out via the local Post Office with free banking, but also special rates for credit card transactions and PDQ machines too!

Currently, we don't offer credit card facilities to our customers, but it would make life easier if we lost our local bank branch. We probably will do something about this in the next few months, just in case our bank goes too!

Is it wise to get CCTV to cover Credit card transactions, or doesn't it matter?

[osgood]

NYAF,
I don't really know about up there in UK, but I have been taking credit cards for many years with one of those electronic card readers and it has been a boon to my bank balance. Taking 50% deposit is so much easier and that old chestnut "I don't have any money with me" is consigned to history.

Another benefit is that I can take payment over the phone!

Another one - less paperwork when doing the banking and the money is in my account the next morning!

CCTV???? I've not heard of that being necessary anywhere. Maybe I'm leading a sheltered life?

[markw]

In my business 90% of transactions are by credit card - couldn't survive without it.
The FSBs deal does look attractive. Having a business in a country market town does tend to make you slightly paranoid that the basic banking facilities are going to suddenly disappear - We used to have 5 banks in the town - now only 2 and they have dramatically cut the staff in both remaining banks.

I think the cheap deal banks cover lack of presence by providing you with envelopes - you post cheques to them - bit long winded. With the ability to take credit cards your money is in your bank fairly quickly - but you do pay for that service - they have you by the nuts whatever you do.

[WelshFramer]

I use the Abbey free business banking service. It works OK.

It took ages to open the account and then another two weeks to get through registering to go online. Don't lose your passwords or you have to go through the registration process again. Apart from that it works fine.

It comes with a VISA debit card, a current account and a deposit account. So far I've used the VISA card and cheque book and paid in cheques using the post-paid envelopes.

The deposit account would be handy for saving up to pay my tax bill at the end of the year but in reality still just holds the £50 initial deposit.

There's also a card for taking cash out from machines but I've not used that.