A study into the half-year performance of Britain’s largest high street banks has estimated that a total of £200m of ‘unfair’ charges have been refunded to customers who’ve initiated legal action over possibly punitive or excessive charges.
A piece in the Observer criticises popular direct savings account provider ING for failing to keep up with interest rate rises. While most competing accounts have passed on rate rises to savers, ING has once again declined to do so, leaving its savings rate of 5% now a full 0.75% below the Bank of England base rate.
Natwest is to launch a new account aimed at current account holders who regularly go into the red without having an agreed overdraft facility, for which they can be charged up to £38 each time. The new account will have a lower unauthorised ovedraft fee of £17, in exchange for a fixed monthly payment of £10.
Abbey customers using the bank’s online services encountered problems yesterday, with unrelated account details being displayed after logging on.
Customers reported being able to see direct debit details that didn’t belong to them, along with balances of accounts and transaction histories.
Research from Sainsbury’s Bank suggests that UK bank account holders have over £13bn of surplus cash sitting in current accounts paying a paltry 0.1% in interest.
An estimated 20,000 customers of First Direct have jumped ship since the direct banking pioneer introduced a monthly fee on its current accounts in February of this year,
The charge of £10 was imposed on all current accounts into which the customer deposited less than £1,500 a month, and is estimated to have affected around 195,000 accounts.
NatWest are ramping up their High Street business banking operations with the introduction of 500 new business managers across its branch network, along with a new account which waives charges on standard transactions for the first two years of a new startup’s operation.
Many of Vodafone’s UK customers can now access a basic range of banking facilities over their internet-enabled mobile phones, following the launch of a free (for now) service using the Monilink mobile banking network.
Customers who have accounts with banks such as Alliance & Leicester, HSBC and First Direct will be able to check their balances on their handset, as well as order statements and top up pay-as-you-go mobile accounts.