Thanks for the reply. Just what I thought, the woman in my local branch was talking cr*p. I rang AIB's head office to check out the situation and less than 10 minutes latter, the assistant manager of my local branch was on the phone to me confirm that what she had told me wasn't 'strictly true'. He has offered me free banking to stay with AIB so now I don't know what to do. On the one hand, their level of customer service is utterly inadequate but it might be best to stay on their good side as I'll be looking for a mortgage in about a year. What to do, what to do...