I have been a memebr of Intelligent Finance (I.F.)for around a year now and having spent so much of my time complaining about other banks I thought I should write something nice.
I.F. are an entirely online bank and while they did start out as a subsidiary of Halifax are now entirely their own division. I point this out because I initially thought I could use the Halifax branches as their High Street "presence". This is pretty much not the case so if you have cheques or the odd bit of cash to pay in you have to send it to I.F. head office. This is by far the most inconvenient thing and really this bank is only suitable if you have your main monthly income submitted to it. I would recommend opening a High Street account as well to deal with many of the igh Street things you still need.
I switched my main account , personal loan (consolidation) , Credit Card and ISA to I.F. It is incredibly convenient to be able to switch between all these balances online and money can be moved easily between all. For example if I have £1000 in my savings account I can transfer all of this on to my loan with a coupple of clicks. No phone calls , no statements just simple. I also have used the RoyalBanks Online software and compared to IF it is a nightmare both in set up and use. IF have clearly invested heavily in developing good secure but simple online software and it has paid off.
If your are using so many of their services such as myself their interest rates really are the most competitive. On the Credit Card theres no silly 0% balance transfer rates just an always low rate of 9.9%. Online it is really easy to transfer additional sums on to the card.
On my personal loan of £10000 I am paying again 9.9% but this was the only bank that offered me a much longer repayment period. While this is often not a good idea I.Fs flexibility in being able to pay lump sums in at anytime made this a highly effective loan for me.
Customer Service is still not good enough however though has improved since the early days. When I initially joined I could be waiting for 30 Minutes for someone to answer the phone and thought Id made a BIG mistake. It has only improved from very bad however and there still seems to be an over reliance on technology. With an Internet Bank I generally only want MORE information when I call than I can see on screen but their advisors often only have the same information without transferring elsewhere.
They also seem more inflexible than "normal" banks. I have generally been used to simply phoning and asking for an increased overdraft but this was a BIG production with I.F. Again I had to be transferred then wait a further 5 days for it to be approved and no one called to say it couldnt be approved as I never had the account long enough.
A sign of any good bank is how they treat you when things arent going so well. I recently went self employed and over the last few months things became very tight. This meant missing a couple of payments on my loan/credit card. I.F. could teach other banks a lesson in how to deal with this. They were still firm (they want their money) but understanding and offered counselling to help me make repayments. With no regular amount going in to the account at this time however I found it VERY difficult to get money into the account. Every method would seem to take up to 5 days to have cleared funds in the account.
Thankfully I quickly found another job but this experience alone would lead me to thoroughly recommend this bank to anyone. Headline interest rates are all very well but ultimately you need a responsible secure bank that doesnt just talk about customers being improtant.
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Advantages: Low interest rates and besides you don't lose anything just by looking!! Disadvantages: Obviously you are borrowing money which means debt but other than that - none really!!
Paula_23_uk 07.05.2001 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Intelligent Finance
Jan 3rd, 2003
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