Intelligent?? Finance

Advantages: Competitive borrowing rates
Disadvantages: Woeful call centre expertise and supporting systems

...Style"). The result is that after a couple of years you are forced to go through the rigmarole of making an application for a further advance. This means you have to pay futher administration fees, and valuation fees. But the worst aspect of the whole thing is that IF simply need to be chased constantly. Your application gets stuck in the system and only a call from the account holder can unjam it. You get told that the application is waiting on a call to the account holder, but there is no mechanism actually to action anyone to make the call. It is desperately depressing talking to the first-name-only call centre staff as they seem to have the haziest idea about their own products. (updated on 14 July) I always refer to this bank as 'so called Intelligent Finance". Their customer service is truly awful. I began the process...

stevehem 14.07.2006 · Read review
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Review of Intelligent Finance Mortgages

Intelligent Finances IQ?

Advantages: 24 hr access to money, good comprehensive web site
Disadvantages: Poor customer service (phone), not easy to pay money into the account

...When it comes to banking I have no loyality what so ever to any bank, I mean lets face it, would they have loyality to you as individual. Most will take your money without giving you a second thought. I have had an Intelligent Finance current account for about 4 years. They are my no means the best bank account around and they arent the worst. If I could describe them in a word - mediocre To be fair to them, when they first appeared on the market they did offer a pretty good deal. They offer the following products 1. Mortages 2. Loans 3. Current Accounts 4. Savings Accounts 5. Credit Cards They also offered a very attractive offer called offsetting. This offsetting allowed the customer to off set the balance of a current or savings account against the balance of a mortage, credit card or loan. A very useful item...

Jaws311uk 13.05.2007 · Read review
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Not So Intelligent Finance

Advantages: Good interest rates for both borrowing and saving.
Disadvantages: Slow international incoming transfers. Credit card account now outside of IF plan.

...OK ... I started off being really quite 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 money on the 4th working day after selling the shares 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...

sexyjw 28.07.2005 · Read review
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An Intelligent choice ?????

Advantages: Good rates of interest, all products with one bank
Disadvantages: No high street branches

...When I got my first internet enabled computer nearly three years ago, I decided to go mad and apply for many different credit cards on many different websites. Most refused me, 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 Website *************** The web site is clearly laid out in quite eye pleasing purple tones. There are links to all the products, with demonstrations of how much you could save if you switch accounts...

sandemp 02.01.2005 · Read review
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Review of Intelligent Finance

  DESIGN your Mortgage INTELLIGENTLY....

Advantages: flexible, available for 95% mortgages, interest calculated daily, no arrangement fee, no indemnity premium, no tie in period, online/ telephone 24hrs
Disadvantages: lacks personal touch, not available for 100% mortgages, (mortgage deeds not stored), may not suit older persons i.e. up to 65 years due to age restrictions

...next year’s holiday it is only fair that you should consider how to make your mortgage work ‘with’ you and not ‘against’ you! Think about it… this is the biggest financial decision you will ever make in your life and one you should spend time thinking about. [Caution! This is detailed in parts but I feel its really important to understand a mortgage product before committing and deciding which one is for you. Please fast forward >>to relevant parts as required, thanks] WHY I Chose Intelligent Finance (Mortgage product) -------------------------------- Having had several years previous experience stuck in a Fixed rate mortgage product - which basically means agreeing to pay interest at a fixed rate for an agreed amount of time often with built in restrictions, I was determined not to take out...

Connoisseur_Haggler 30.12.2002 (02.01.2003) · Read review
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Review of Intelligent Finance Mortgages

Intelligent people who gave me Finance

Advantages: Competitive, Backed by Halifax, Excellent service
Disadvantages: early days

...I went to see a mortgage lender who was supposed to represent most of the lenders on the market. I was offered a ridiculously low borrowing amount and hastily started looking elsewhere. I looked on the net and quickly found that I could easily get £5000 more than was offered earlier. I then saw a recommendation for Intelligent Finance. I was advised that they were offering a very good mortgage deal by the Tesco.com mortgage supermarket and again in the Sunday Express. This led me to look into what the catches were. The low interest rate was a 1.5% reduction for 6 months then payments would return to normal at the variable standard rate of 6.1% The mortgage had no booking fee, no Lenders arrangement fee, no mortgage Indemnity premium, and a remaining fee of £150. The loan had no Loan conditions such as early redemption penalties...

floater 30.10.2001 · Read review
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Review of Intelligent Finance Mortgages

Issue Free Finance

Advantages: money works harder than in a normal bank
Disadvantages: can be complicated to understand at first

...I must say I was surprised to see 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 step by step demos which explain the way IF work using Macromedia Flash or Non Flash (text). You can find information about the different products they offer on this site but in my case I like to talk to someone first so I just telephoned and presented the poor service agent with an endless barrage of questions. The agent I dealt with was incredibly...

volpina 02.07.2002 · Read review
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Intelligent Finance for Dummies.

Advantages: Quick, simple, from the comfort of your own home.
Disadvantages: None.

...We bought our present home 4 years ago and like many people in the same position, we now have a house that is worth more than we could afford today. Of course, this means we can't afford to move to anywhere bigger. So of course it would be nice to free up some of that equity, without changing my monthly payments and for no more than an hour or so of my own time. And you can... I called Intelligent Finance (I know you can do it all online, but - and this is something that I want to stress - I.F. make this absolutely idiot proof) because I wanted to get the application right first time. A very pleasant lady walked me through the whole thing in about 20 minutes. On a Sunday afternoon. I needed to call her back about one piece of info that I could not lay my hands on immediately and left a message for her to call back - which she...

eduardob 02.03.2004 · Read review
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Review of Intelligent Finance Mortgages

IF ONLY IF WERE INTELLIGENT FINANCE

Advantages: Online Account
Disadvantages: Online Account Doesn't Work and nethier do the Business Processes behind IF.

...one thing, being able to access your accounts is an entirely separate matter, or so I have been told! You see the problem now is a rather dubious error that no one at IF seems to be able to correct and since I have been told it is a system wide problem and one which is shared by others I felt compelled to write an opinion for my fellow banking buddies! IF aynone out there know's how to correct the 'This account does not exist' error message once you are 'logged in' please could they get in contact with IF and let them know as I have been told that it would be corrected within a 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 · Read review
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Review of Intelligent Finance

An Intelligent Choice

Advantages: Attractive rates, no tie-in period. Smart mortgage.
Disadvantages: The discounted rate is only 6 months - some lenders discount for longer

...I recently purchased a house and wanted a good deal on my mortgage. I wanted everything - a discounted rate, cashback and also no tie-in period. The tie-in period was very important to me as I had to leave my previous mortgage lender (the Leeds & Holbeck) and they charged me over £3000 to do this because I was still within my 5 year tie-in period. I could have stayed with the Leeds & Holbeck to avoid paying this huge fee but Leeds & Holbeck would not lend me the extra money (I needed £120,000) for my new house. I decided to go to Intelligent Finance and I was very pleased to hear that they would lend me up to £140,000 - more than enough for what I needed! The deal I got from IF was 6% base rate which is lower than any other lender that I had checked up on at the time. There was a discount of 1.5% for the first 6 months. I have seen...

Manics 10.11.2001 · Read review
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Review of Intelligent Finance Mortgages