Advantages: money works harder than in a normal bank Disadvantages: can be complicated to understand at first
...so many critical reviews of Intelligent Finance here on Ciao. I felt I must redress the balance somewhat as I have had a completely different experience with them.
Intelligent Finance are a division of Halifax plc. They are solely internet based which is ideal for a lazy bones like me. Having come across a link to their website I went to investigate...
The website (www.if.com) itself is clearly laid out and easy to understand. There are fantastic ... ...feel confident in dealing with Intelligent Finance.
IF claim to be 'not just another bank but a new way of banking' and this is why:
You apply for an Intelligent Finance Plan which is basically a 'folder' containing one or more products. I opened my Plan with a current account and a savings account but you can apply for as many products as you like (eg credit card/loan/mortgage aswell). You treat these products like pots of money and give them ...
volpina 02.07.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
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!!
Unintelligent would be the name for you if you didn’t at least consider looking at this site if you were looking for a loan, a mortgage, a credit card or somewhere to invest your savings and open an account.
I stumbled across this site when I was checking out interest rates for loans so I thought I would give it a go. www.if.com is the site I got to where the layout is very simple and easy on the eye to look at. With it’s soothing colour ... ...informative and helpful.
First you are taken to a plain simple page where you pick the service you require. You have a choice of Mortgage, Personal Loans, Credit Cards, Current Account and Savings. I went for the Personal Loan link. From here you are taken, rather quickly, to a page with information on, examples for you to read through and a Quick Quote option. There are links back to other plans you may wish to see at the top of the page you are ...
Paula_23_uk 07.05.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
Advantages: They gave me a Swtich card?! Disadvantages: Been locked out their website too many times!
Intelligent Finance the bank that did say Yes, unlike many others who did not….
There was me, 27 with a Halifax account and no one anywhere would let me have a Switch card. See, me like many others out there when I as a young lass made some silly mistakes with credit cards and store cards and loans…. Need I continue? So, after paying my dues and living like a good girl for a long time, I was shocked time after time to be turned down by everyone ... ...general. Till one day my friend came to visit and recommended I try IF. I of course told him there was no way they would give me an account, after all they are linked to Halifax and they wouldn’t let me upgrade my account, so why would IF be any different? ‘Ah haaa’, he said. They will if you don’t have an overdraft. So, mockingly I went along with it and applied and to my disbelief they did accept me and let me have a current account. So, all was ...
Miss_BooBookitty 01.01.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
Advantages: good interest rates Disadvantages: slow, inflexible, too many catches
What attracted me to IF.com was the interest rates. They compare very well and came out on top when I did a search using www.moneysupermarket.com (another one of my comments). However my experiences from applying to this moment in time are far from good.
Apart from taking almost 3 weeks to open my original plan (a savings account that doesnt even require a credit check)the contact between IF and myself was particuarlly poor. For security they have ... ...to contact them. They dont accept ordinary emails. This is ok but it is time consuming and they reply is far from quick in coming. They do have a call me back facility on the web site but for the past 2 months it has been unavailable. I sent a message to them from the web site about this and another matter and 3 days later got a reply. Apart from not resolving my original query they also informed me that they had no idea when the facility might be ...
mattpepper 15.10.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
Advantages: Good Online Software , Excellent Interest Rates Disadvantages: Inconvenient for Cheques / Paying In
...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 ... ...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 ...
pjryan 03.01.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
Advantages: Good rates of interest, all products with one bank Disadvantages: No high street branches
...but one that accepted was Intelligent Finance. I was, well to put it simply, chuffed to be accepted for my first credit card and decided to open a current and savings account at the same time.
The Bank
***********
Launched in 2000, Intelligent Finance is a web and phone based bank, so there are no high street branches. However, as a division of Halifax PLC they do have big name backing, which as I'm sure you realise, makes for piece of mind.
... ...The Products
*****************
Intelligent Finance offers a number of financial products.
MORTGAGES : There are four types of mortgage available.
1. Offset Mortgage - which gives you the chance to link your mortgage to your current account and savings, and “offset” the credit balance against your debit balance. This sounds complicated but means that instead of receiving interest on your savings, you will not pay interest on the equivalent amount ...
sandemp 02.01.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
Advantages: very flexi payments on loans Disadvantages: still has teathing problems
Its been about 8 months now since I opened my 1st plan with IF. I had a current acc with Halifax but they were charging me a £1 to use cash machines that were not thiers and the interest was pitiful. I spied IF and thought I would give them a whirl. I opened a Curr Acc, leaving all existing DDs at Halifax, and I was to use the IF acc for all the money I had to spend every month, and leaving enough for all bills in my Halifax account. SO every month ... ...earn some interest on it and no charges for cash machines. Excellent. Things went OK. Then after dsicovering the FOOL, see another of my opinions, I decided it was time to take the scissors to my my Credit card and pay off my overdraft at Halifax, I had been putting it off for long enough.
So I looked around for the cheapest rate for a loan of £2000 over a year. now IF didnt come in the cheapest, but it is VERY easy to make over payments, so it ...
Scammer 28.05.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
Advantages: good comunication Disadvantages: website can be a bit slow
...Savings and Current account with Intelligent Finance (IF) in July 2001. I have been reading through the various opinions on IF, and think I must post my own, because I almost totally DISSAGREE with everyone else!!! I think that essentially IF must have changed (a lot, for the better) through the start of 2001. Everything I have ever received has been sent by First Class post, but I ‘doo’ agree that the whole opening process (opening accounts manually ... ...process took 2-3 weeks, and Intelligent Finance were slow off the mark (but at least with me they got it right first time). I do agree that customer services are not ideal. Generally I have got through to a human within seconds when needed, but to be honest I have only had to phone them a few times, which I suppose in itself is good. One thing that I find annoying, and wrong, is that whenever I put in a cheque or bank transfer or whatever it is it ...
STEVENALEX 16.07.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
Advantages: Bank online, keep track of your money Disadvantages: No high street branches
I worked for intelligent finance since just after launch until recently. I am not giving advice on whether or not you should bank with them or not. Just after reading a few reviews on them I felt I might be able to help with a few things and dispell a few myths!.
Halifax and Bank of Scotland. We are owned by the same group as these banks (HBOS) but we are a completely seperate bank, We are NOT the online part of them. As such they will be able to ... ...not information or advice from intelligent finance it is soley based on my own opinion and is in no way affiliated to the company or should be taken as that.
As I said at the start I am not doing this to promote them or advising you to take their products I just though I could help a few people. ...
Salson 19.11.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
Advantages: none Disadvantages: calls never returned. not enough staff.
I made an application to Intelligent Finance online at their website.
The thought of being able to place all my banking products together with one bank, was a welcome thought.
The application was easy to make and the site was very easy to navigate. Lots of helpful hyperlinks to text with short, but useful explanations.
I applied for all their products, Mortgage: New purchase as the interest rates at the time were going lower and lower and they ... ...said they were cutting of my services. This has still not been resolved even although I have made a complaint in writing to Itelligent Finance.
This could potentially be a nightmare and costly for other Ciao members and Intelligent Finance members.
Please be warned. ...
Darren1504 26.01.2002 (29.01.2002)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
Advantages: Read the review for full details of benefits Disadvantages: No where to pay cash in the High Street as it is Internet and post only bank
...good it would be to have a savings account of £2000 with a monthly interest rate 12.9%, I sure would not mind.
So there we are just a few of the benefits of banking with Intelligent Finance, a bank at last that wants to help you and not themselves!! ...
Squidget 02.01.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
Advantages: Good interest rates for both borrowing and saving. Disadvantages: Slow international incoming transfers. Credit card account now outside of IF plan.
...pleased, and proud of my Intelligent Finance accounts. I had been a student, and we all know what students are like with money. This was my first "working now ... going straight" account, and I opened up the current account, credit card and savings account.
All was fine, until I had a reasonably large sum of money sent from the US. This was funds from a sale of stock in the company for which I work. Most of my work colleagues were receiving their ... ...in the US. Mine was taking nearer 10 working days.
I queried this with IF, and after much umming and arring, they admitted to me that they could not tell when funds wired to my account from the US would arrive. It wasn't the 3,000 mile journey that was the problem. They agreed that the funds were basically in the UK on the 3rd or 4th working day. But they said that all International funds went via the Bank of Scotland, and "that they couldn't tell ...
sexyjw 28.07.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
Advantages: Can dramatically cut interest on borrowings Disadvantages: Customer Service is quite poor, no paying in facility other than post.
Intelligent finance, www.if.com provide a very easy to use and quite a novel online financial service. In case you don't know about them, they are part of the Halifax (HBOS) Group and in a nutshell, their service allows you to offset your loans against the money you have in your current / savings accounts. Their website is not too flashy and is very easy to use. The system allows you 5 types of services which are accessed through a secure log-in ... ...Account.
Credit card interest is 8.9%, loan interest is 7.9%, Mortages are 4.9%.
Savings pay 3.8% and current account 3.2%
For people (like me) who have lots of debt, the service is very good. If, for example I have £2000 of loan & credit card and £1500 savings in my account, then i only pay interest on the £500.
The current account is very useful, I can transfer money into my savings / credit card / loan at the drop of a hat and also transfer ...
sjl02 06.09.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
Advantages: Online Account Disadvantages: Online Account Doesn't Work and nethier do the Business Processes behind IF.
...few days, a few weeks, next month and now I'm not so sure IF ever!
Oh of course you can always use the telephone banking system ... kind of defeats the Intelligent part of Online Finance though don't you think?
Happy Banking - IF you use an Intellgient Bank! ...
DoomSlayer 17.01.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
Advantages: Very high interest rates, Internet facility Disadvantages: Slow, doesn't always record your actions properly
...opinion). So, the prospect of Intelligent Finance was most attractive. They offer the best rate of interest that I have seen anywhere (5.3%), and their Internet facility is clear and user-friendly - but there are several drawbacks.
In actuality, most of the drawbacks to Intelligent Finance lie behind one central fact: it is so very slow! As I pointed out, it took 6 weeks between my application and receiving just my initial documents, and a further ... ...I waited a little over 2 months just to get my account up and running! But that was far from the end of it. Once the account was set-up, it seemed to take ages for deposits and transactions to clear. Indeed, other members of my family have found that sometimes very important deposits into the account have never cleared, and they have then had to start over again! This is surely something that IF must put right!
Nevertheless, the interest rates are ...
stuartcorey 02.09.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Intelligent Finance
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