Lloyds TSB

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TSB merged with Lloyds back in 1995 to form Lloyds TSB Group plc, I can't believe it's already been 13 years (I still referred to it as TSB by accident until 2 or 3 years ago). But it wasn't until mid 1999 that TSB and Lloyds Bank branches in England and Wales were actually re-branded as Lloyds TSB.


'''WHY ME?'''

I've been a current account holder with Lloyds TSB since 1986, except then it was just TSB ...
...and every account available to Lloyds TSB customers, but then again, you could get very bored and stop reading this review right here, so to err on the side of caution, I'll give you the link to find out full details of the various accounts available.

http://www.lloydstsb.com/current_accounts.asp?link=top_navigation

Or if you have money you'd like to save and earn interest on, you can view the list of available accounts ... more

Ok so I couldn't think of a catchier title! TSB's catchphrase used to be "the bank that likes to say Yes" - which is where my uninspired title was born! Interested? Then read on…

WHO?

TSB merged with Lloyds back in 1995 to form Lloyds TSB Group plc, I can't believe it's already been 13 years (I still referred to it as TSB by accident until 2 or 3 years ago). But it wasn't until mid 1999 that TSB and Lloyds Bank branches in England and Wales were actually re-branded as Lloyds TSB.

WHY ME?

I've been a current account holder with Lloyds TSB since 1986, except then it was just TSB or Trustee Savings Bank (as was it's full name). What I liked about TSB even back then was that fact that it was online real-time banking, i.e. if you made a deposit anywhere in the UK at another branch of TSB it would show up on your account instantly, whereas as far as I'm aware back then, other banks wouldn't show the deposit amount on your account till a few days later.

Also, for example, if you paid in a cheque from another TSB customer, it would be deducted from their account there and then and show in your account as "cleared funds" (i.e. available to withdraw immediately), unless of course the person who gave you the cheque didn't have enough money in their cheque account to support the cheque.

~*ME IN THE OLD DAYS*~

TSB, like any other bank, was in business to make money off us, the customer, whether we're a business banker (people who have a business and need to pay in credit card or cheque payments) or personal banker (like most of us who just get our salaries paid into our accounts). When I was younger I often took advantage of my authorised overdraft facility and sometimes also took advantage of an "unauthorised" overdraft facility and paid dearly for my sins. Paid in monetary terms of course! Looking back at it now, I realise how much money I wasted regularly paying the fees I was charged for going over my overdraft limit. But banks love people like that, you go over your limit, you write a cheque before payday and it goes through your account before your money's gone in and hey presto, the bank is charging you sums of £15, £20, £25, etc, to bounce cheques and to write you lovely letters telling you all about it.

TSB had a pet name with a few people I knew who weren't very financially secure and often used unauthorised overdrafts and paid heavy charges - "the bank that likes to say NO". This was because TSB (as far as I knew) had a sensible reputation of not letting people borrow more than they could afford to repay like many banks and credit card companies do these days.

ME NOWADAYS

Now I'm more "grown-up" I have more control of my spending and my bank account. I don't use my £600 overdraft facility at all (although I feel safe that it's there). I always pay my credit card bills in full so I don't pay any interest. I regularly get letters saying my credit limit has been increased - as I'm a good customer, why not? Except that they expect me to get greedy and use more money than I can afford to pay back in one month and thereby have to pay interest. No, not me, not anymore!

THE ACCOUNTS

Firstly there's the Classic & Classic Plus current accounts. The Classic account is a basic current account which gives you free banking, online and telephone access to your account, a VISA debit card and commission free travel money. The Classic Plus accounts needs you to pay in at least £1000 a month to earn you 4.00% (which equates to 3.93% gross* and 3.14% net*) interest on your money. Not a bad interest rate on a current account.

You can also have a Select, Gold Service or Platinum account (each with varying benefits). There are also Premier (for people earning over £60k) and International banking accounts as well as a range of Student and Graduate accounts.

I could sit here and type the different benefits of each and every account available to Lloyds TSB customers, but then again, you could get very bored and stop reading this review right here, so to err on the side of caution, I'll give you the link to find out full details of the various accounts available.

http://www.lloydstsb.com/current_accounts.asp?link=top_navigation

Or if you have money you'd like to save and earn interest on, you can view the list of available accounts and their benefits at:

http://www.lloydstsb.com/savings.asp

Lloyds TSB also offers car, home and travel insurance, mortgages, loans, credit cards, pensions and investments and share dealing facilities.

~*MY ACCOUNTS*~I had a "Select Account" which cost me £7 a month (this went up initially being £5 a month). It was a fairly good deal if you used the facilities provided with the account, which in this case include:

• Everything you get in the Classic Plus account plus:
• Mobile phone insurance
• Sentinel credit card protection
• AA breakdown cover
• Savings on package holidays
• Up to £50 interest free overdraft
• Up to 25% off new and used cars
• Commission free travel money
• VISA debit card
• (and a few other not so exciting benefits)

If you open a new Select Account with Lloyds TSB I think they give you several months free so you can try out the account to see how it suits you.I've also got a Platinum VISA credit card which, as I said earlier, I pay off every month, so as to avoid paying interest.

Recently I was also offered a Lloyds TSB American Express card which I'm still thinking about…

I have also got an ISA account in which you can save a lump sum each year and earn tax-free interest on the lump sum which has recently gone up from about £3,600 a year to £5,100. I don't think many banks are offering very competitive rates on these accounts at the moment but you could shop around, of course, for the best possible interest rates. I've also an Online Saver account which I opened with the minimum required £250 deposit quite some time ago and which currently pays a quite poor Gross interest rate of 2.50% p.a. If you open this and other savings accounts as a new accounts, I think you get a higher rate of interest for the first few months. I opened this account online through internet banking and the account was open within minutes. Talking of Internet Banking…

~*INTERNET BANKING*~

What a wonderful invention! I started using Internet Banking 3 or 4 years ago (or whenever it first started) and it's absolutely brilliant. I'm one of those people who hates queuing up in banks to pay bills, change standing orders, transfer money between accounts, etc. So when Internet Banking came about, I was one of the first to jump on the bandwagon, prior to that I'd used Phone Banking for several years and was quite happy with that but with Internet Banking it was an even more convenient way to manage my accounts and pay bills, set up standing orders, cancel standing orders or direct debits, transfer money between accounts, set up new accounts, change dates of payments or payment amounts for standing orders, etc. I recently applied for a loan online thinking it would save me the hassle of going into a branch to make an appointment and then taking time off work to make the appointment, etc. Guess what? I applied for the loan online, filled in all the necessary details that you would fill in on a loan application and the money was in my account within five minutes of me starting the process. I was stunned!!! That is what I call convenient banking. That is what I call banking to suit my needs and that is why I've always been happy to stay with Lloyds TSB as a customer.

I would add here that since I opened a few additional savings accounts, such as ISA and joint savings account with my husband the order the accounts appear on the screen changed. It doesn't seem to appear in any sensible order and for me, as a customer it's more convenient to have my current account listed first as this is the one I use the most but for some reason my joint deposit account is at the top, then the ISA, then my internet savings account, my current account and then my monthly fixed amount savings account. I contacted Lloyds TSB about this order all going askew and they very unhelpfully advised that there's nothing that can be done about it.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

It's quite difficult for me to rate the level of customer service available from Lloyds TSB staff as I rarely visit a branch, usually when I'm lucky enough to get a cheque from someone would be about the only time I need to visit an actual branch. In recent years the only branch I've visited has been the one in Ealing Broadway in West London and I can't fault the service there. I usually go at lunchtime when it's obviously busy as everyone else is on their lunch-break too. They always have 3 or so tills open and when the queue gets bigger they used to be quicker to open other tills so as not to keep customers waiting too long but I've noticed in the last couple of years that's not always the case.

The staff are always extremely polite but friendly, I can honestly say I ALWAYS get service with a smile, but as I'm only talking about this particular branch, readers of this review may have experienced a different service level from other branches. If I ask for my balance after paying in a cheque, I'm politely requested to verify that I am the account holder (that usually means showing my VISA debit card or credit card to confirm the signature on the paying in slip) and they're very discreet about writing the balance down and passing it to you. I say this as I've popped down to other banks with friends or colleagues over the years and the balance was given verbally for everyone to hear, which I would be very annoyed about.

One thing I would add is that the staff sometimes ask you if you'd like to upgrade your account when you're in there just to quickly pay in a cheque. But I've never found them to do this in a pushy manner. I usually say that the account I have meets my needs perfectly and I'm on my lunch break and they let it go at this.

I've seen people rant and rave at cashiers because their cheque hasn't cleared (not the cashier's fault) or their salary hasn't gone into their account (again not the cashiers fault if you gave the wrong sort code and account number to your employer for your first salary) but the staff always maintain dignity and professionalism. Can you blame a bank employee if someone's given you a cheque which hasn't cleared as they didn't have money in their account to honour the cheque?

I feel a great deal of sympathy of people having to sit there and calmly take abuse and not retaliate. Lloyds TSB staff seem to receive good customer service training and people in other customer services roles could learn a great deal from them!

One thing I would add here is that my husband took out a personal loan from Lloyds TSB a few years ago just before we met to buy a car. He was advised at the time that he HAD to pay out payment protection which he did not feel he would need. He was clearly told that if he did not take the protection he would not be granted the loan. So he took it... A year or so later, after paying off monthly payments regularly and on time, he had enough money to pay back the whole loan and was given an early resettlement quote which was rather higher than he expected. On investigation we found that he was being expected to pay the full amount of the payment protection. Now I'm now sure exactly how this works but it was a huge amount and hubby was not happy about it and was on the verge of putting in a formal complaint about the member of staff. I helped him draft a letter of protest to the branch concerned, detailing exactly how he was "persuaded" to take out the payment protection (at this stage the bank was saying that he didn't have to take the protection - it was completely voluntary). We drafted quite a detailed letter and basically, he got back the money for the payment protection. So a word of warning, ask very carefully about this aspect when taking out a loan, I guess some banks may insist on this if they feel you are a bad risk - but this wasn't the case with my husband and this was proved to be an error on the bank's part or they would not have refunded the money so quickly!

I recently (mid-2009) had my Lloyds TSB credit card cloned and found the people who were dealing with my case over the phone to be very inept. I went into my local branch (Ealing Broadway) for something and remembered that I had not been able to see my credit card balance when logged into internet banking and explained briefly to the cashier I was worried about why I couldn't see my balance. She very kindly asked another member of staff to take me into a meeting room and look at my account and explain that the card had been cancelled so the cloners (if that's what they've called) couldn't use the anymore and as it was a case of fraud the account was locked and needed to be investigated and told me that similar incidents had happened to her twice already and had been resolved satisfactorily but that it would take a few weeks. It was reassuring to hear someone in the know being so helpful when the people I had dealt with at the credit card side of the business seemed to be giving me the run around.

FRAUD ALERT

With all the fraud going around these days, Lloyds TSB is being responsible by warning its customers who log onto internet banking about possible fraud on their accounts. There are people everywhere trying to make money dishonestly in various ways, one of the more recent attempts to steal money from innocent people includes sending random emails to millions of people hoping someone will actually log into their account via the link provided in the email and these fraudsters will now have your account details. I have pasted the text from the warning I usually receive when I log in as I feel it's very important people do not fall into the trap of logging into fake websites:

"We are aware of a number of fraudulent emails currently in circulation that use many genuine Lloyds TSB images. These emails look extremely realistic and encourage 'confirmation' of Internet banking log on details in order to restore Internet banking access. These emails are not genuine.

Lloyds TSB may send emails from time to time, however we will never send an email asking for your security information or log on details, or direct you to a page that asks for this information.

If you think that a fraudster already has your Internet banking details, or that someone other than you has accessed your account online, call us immediately on 0845 3000 116 (+44 20 7649 9437 from overseas)."

I really would advise people not to log into their bank accounts via links provided in emails unless they are 100% sure it's from their own bank. I've received emails from banks I've never even heard of asking me to log as there's been suspicious activity on my account or attempted fraud on my account. When you don't have an account and someone's asking you to log in, it's quite laughably obvious that it's a fake "phishing" email!

To read more about "phishing" see http://www.antiphishing.org

CONCLUSION

It's very difficult to rate a bank out of 10 when it's really been the only current account one has ever had. If pushed, I'd say I give my bank 8 out of 10.

I know people think it's cool to slate their banks and credit card companies for late fees and high charges, but honestly, if you use your Lloyds TSB account responsibly (hoping not to sound too preachy here) you will get the benefit of good banking and taking advantage of 30 days interest free credit when you pay your credit card bills in full and/or earning interest on your current account.

Thank you for reading this far… I hope this review has been useful to anyone considering opening an account with Lloyds TSB.

• gross = before tax
• net = after tax

 

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