Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Local, easy to set up, can be friendly . |
| Disadvantages: |
Old - fashioned - lack of cashcards, pin numbers etc . Max . withdrawl £100, takes 14 working days to process cheques . |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
As part of its attempt to act as a community centre the Post Office has for many years providing many services other than postal deliveries. One of the services offered is banking. Why start up a post office account? Well my account is a relic of my early teenage years when I lived in a small village without a bank or even a cashpoint, but there was a post office run by a slightly bonkers but extremely nice old lady who had devoted her life to the Post Office.
A post office bank account is like any other, you put money in and take it out when you want it, and even earn interest on it (although at just 1% APR this is hardly an advantage of a Post Office bank account). While I was just using it as an advanced form of piggy bank that was fine; I would only take money out every few months or so and all I had to do was fill in a form and produce my book. The account could be kept open with just £1 and the minimum deposit/withdrawal was just £10.
The years drifted away until there came a time when I had to handle all my money (for general living expenses) myself. Still a student I receive quarterly cheques of my parents that keep me fed, clothed and drunk. I also moved out of the little village with a post office into a suburb of a much larger town, but there was still a post office nearby so I thought I would continue to use that. Then the problems started, there was no more nice old lady and instead there was a grumpy cow saying that my signature wasn’t the same as the one on the book (well that was when I was 12) and so I had to produce ID to take money out. This was just about bearable once, but when I went in again a week later (having produced ID the first time) I was questioned again and again and again (and it is not usual practice to carry one’s passport around all over the place). Other deficiencies of the service started cropping up too, the maximum withdrawal is £100 and cheques take 14 working days (almost 3 weeks) to process, that’s 3 weeks of borrowing off friends to make ends meet. The whole process of having to fill out a form and stand in a long queue to withdraw money no longer seemed so good either, why can’t the Post Office have cashpoints and cashcards like anywhere else (and if I had a pin number then it wouldn’t matter what my signature looked like).
The problem with Post Office banking then is that it is behind the times. This is not entirely a disadvantage for a nice old lady can be very helpful if you have a problem. On the other hand your local post office might be inhabited by a pedantic cow and so this aspect is a little bit of pot luck. However the bank is essentially for beginners; interest rates are low and using the service regularly is awkward because of all the forms that have to be filled out (and of course you can only withdraw £100 a day so to get more than this you have to go in and fill out the form again the next day). The system has not been modernised to provide a high level of cash services and so everything is painfully slow and inconvenient. Still at least you can post a letter at the same time as getting your money out (just leave an hour or two to do so).
This account is good as a piggy bank but I warn you against using it for anything more complicated. If you live in a village without a cashpoint then perhaps you might consider it, but make sure you know what to expect (which you should now do, hopefully :-}).
For more info. pop into your local Post Office and inquire about an ‘Ordinary National Savings Account’.
