Cater Allen

Advantages: Polite, generally moderately knowledgeable staff
Disadvantages: No longer able to answer the phone quickly.

I have banked with Cater Allen for many decades, since they were the retail banking arm of Robert Fleming & Co (RIP). Having passed through various corporate hands they ended up with Abbey, which in turn is part of the Santander Group. The whole operation was always faintly amateurish, with serious incompetence demonstrated when anything complicated was requested (for example transferring funds to an overseas account), but the call centre operatives ...
...rings. Sadly now Cater Allen has, at long last, offered internet banking, this is not the case. The bank has decided, like all the other retail banks, that customers are important, but not so important that it's worth answering the phone to them promptly. To give you an idea of how long you might have to wait, I *nearly* finished this review before anyone actually picked up the phone, this at 2:45pm on a Monday afternoon. ... Read review

I too miss the days of Flemings. Cater Allen still listen when you tell them that funds are on their way and rarely charge if the overdraft limit is slightly abused BUT my reason for now leaving this bank is that they built up a hefty amount of charges and bounced Direct Debits et., causing my mobile phone to be cut off when I was in the States for a month - real, real hassle. If they had bothered to call me i Could havesorted this out, but now I am closing the account down...