I've been with the Halifax for over 10 years now and must say they're not a bad bunch. Occasionally you get the odd muppet behind the glass screen but, compared to other current accounts (Natwest & Nationwide) I've had, they're right up there with the best.
At the moment, I share a Halifax account with my girlfriend and we use that for all our bill paying. We pay in £1000 a month which covers rent and bills quite nicely but also entitles us to 4% interest, which is a lot higher than other accounts and is updated monthly, so we get a couple of quid a month from that, which is better than a kick in the teeth!
We also have a £1000 arranged overdraft just incase and its nice to have this feature, even though we haven't used it just yet. A feature that is much better than natwest is the paying in at the hole in the wall. You don't need to include a paying in slip, which you do with Natwest. It must print the s/c and acc. number on the envelope, which is good and I can't see why natwest can't introduce this.
Whilst I won't go into it too much, their telephone banking service is excellent and very easy to use.
However the main part of this review is their excellent and easy to use onine service. You have to wait a few days before you can use it, however I think this is also to install some confidence in the security aspect of it and so some checks can be made.
Once online, there is a myriad of options and services available, you can choose from banking to mortgages, sharedealing to credit cards. The banking aspect is probably the most widely used and on there, you can check your balance, transfer funds and view recent transactions or direct debits which is very convenient. I found loads of old DD's that I never used and you have the option to delete these.
You can open new accounts and apply for the services online, however i've yet to use these features. Compared to nationwide, the site offers a lot more and is extremely secure. you can also download free anti-virus software which is nice of them!
Overall, at the top of their game and very efficient.
S
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Nov 27th, 2001
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