Key Post Which is the best current account for a personal customer?

As I pointed out in another thread, in the UK, Which? magazine would have a detailed survey of a few hundred customers and would rank the various offerings. I want to see if we can do that via Askaboutmoney.

This is for personal accounts only and not "Which is best for business?"

It should be for AIB, Bank of Ireland , EBS and permanent tsb only as Ulster Bank and KBC are leaving the country.

Some Credit Unions also offer full service current accounts with debit cards.


What should the factors for assessing personal current accounts be?
Depending on your needs, some of these factors will be more or less important


1) Ease of use of the web based facility
2) Ease of use of the smart phone app
3) Access to a real person over the phone or in person if there is a problem to be solved
4) Security
5) Stability - i.e. lack of outages
6) Access to a branch
7) Charges - availability of free banking
I think that the service is more important. But if it's free banking you want...
8) Ease of actually opening an account
9) Availability of an overdraft
10) Availability of a mortgage - It's convenient to have your current account and mortgage in the same place. They know you better and are probably more likely to give you a mortgage.
11) Any other comments?

Some general guidelines

1) For most people having your mortgage and current account and credit card in the one place makes sense. If there is a problem of a DD not going through, you don't have to figure out which bank is to blame. You deal with one bank and one person. Likewise, if your business accounts are with Bank of Ireland, it's probably better to have your personal accounts with Bank of Ireland as well.

2) If you will be applying for a mortgage in the future, it probably makes sense to have your current account with the lender you would most like to get your mortgage from.

3) Against this, some people have said that they don't want their mortgage lender to know all about them, so they have their current account with another bank.

Some factors which you might rate as more important than others

4) The quality of the Web Based platform e.g. I do all my banking from my pc, the quality of the Smartphone app. is irrelevant to me.
5) The quality of the Smart Phone app. if you do all your banking on the phone.
6) If you get a lot of cheques, having a local branch which accepts lodgements would be a factor
7) If you need to withdraw cash in excess of the €1,500 daily limit, check if your bank and your branch allows this. ptsb does not do cash withdrawals at branches anymore.(?) Some BoI branches are cashless(?).

So for my AIB current account

1) Ease of use of the web based facility
Very good.
There was an irritating issue with setting up payees, but that might be resolved now. https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/aib-not-possible-to-set-up-payees.223087/page-2

2) Ease of use of the smart phone app
I don't use it. I prefer to my banking from my pc.


3) Access to a real person over the phone or in person if there is a problem to be solved
I did ring with an issue some months ago and got very frustrated by the multiple options. I think it took about 2 1/2 minutes before I actually got onto someone.

4) Security
I have had no problem. But I can't judge it.

5) Reliability- i.e. lack of outages and errors
I don't remember any. Ah, there was one here, but it didn't impact me.

6) Access to a branch
Rarely use it. But I did need a big draft and it was handy to drop down to the branch in Sandymount.

7) Charges - availability of free banking
It's not an issue for me. They are about €120 a year. But because I have a mortgage with AIB, they refund the charges anyway.

8) Ease of actually opening an account
I have had the account for years.

9) Availability of an overdraft
I have had a facility for years.

11) Other comments
One thing I like about AIB is that I find that a lot of the people I want to pay have AIB accounts, so when I pay them, they get the money instantly into their account.

Overall assessment: 9/10
No reason to move to another bank.

Any factual information on which bank is the most reliable?

There haven't bee many complaints on Askaboutmoney.

Some criticisms of BoI here

I had a look at Which?

They have 5 reports
Best High Interest bank accounts
Best bank accounts for cash back
Best bank accounts for arranged overdrafts
Best packaged bank accounts
Best Basic Bank Accounts

The Account Score is weighted e.g. for the packaged bank accounts:
30% for annual costs
30% for quality for travel insurance
30% for car breakdown cover
10% for the mobile phone insurance

PTSB

1) Ease of use of the web based facility

Reasonable - irritates me that I have to repeatedly do MFA when looking for statements on each account. Once per session should be enough.

2) Ease of use of the smart phone app
No issues here - handy when abroad

3) Access to a real person over the phone or in person if there is a problem to be solved
Fraud issues, responded quickly. Anything else - dreadful.

4) Security
No major issues - attempted fraud several years ago was caught.

5) Stability - i.e. lack of outages
Haven't been impacted by any.

6) Access to a branch
Dire

7) Charges - availability of free banking
used to be free if you had mortgage with them - they dropped that a while back.

8) Ease of actually opening an account
I'd give them 6 out of 10.

9) Availability of an overdraft
No issues here - have facility 'for life' as they failed to put a renewal date on the initial letter a decade ago.

10) Availability of a mortgage

In recent years found they were achingly slow for mortgage applications. Overcharged interest many years ago & refused to refund when questioned at the time. Got a cheque out of the blue when the whole tracker thing came under scrutiny.

Right now its more a question of the 'divil you know'; be interested to see if its worth my while moving accounts.

When I moved house I change banks PTSB was 25km away BOI is just around the corner.
It is very handy to go in with problems, when I had a scam email recently it was easy to go around and confirm this.
I do not have a smart phone app I do not trust my phone and my fingers a too big to type without making mistakes, I have the electronic gadget that I can use with my desktop.
The 365 online is getting more complicated to log in but it does seem to be getting more user friendly once logged in.
As a pensioner I have free banking

I'm with PTSB since 1989. They use to open until 7pm on Friday. I was weekly paid by cheque and didn't like losing my lunch break to cash my cheque.
I have happy memories of cashing my cheque on Friday at 5.30pm and going late night shopping and then out for the night in O'Connels, Eyre Square.

I use the app now and have had no issues i can remember in my 30 + years.

Has anyone any feedback on the An Post current account?

I have a friend who will have to move and cashing cheques is essential.

becky said:

I have a friend who will have to move and cashing cheques is essential.

Click to expand...

Hi becky

Do you mean lodging cheques to their account or actually cashing cheques? Writing a cheque from their own account to cash?

What are their circumstances which makes either of these important? I want to highlight special factors to make it easy for people to choose a bank.

PTSB

1) Ease of use of the web based facility

Grand. MFA is a pain, but I accept that it has to be done

2) Ease of use of the smart phone app
Happy with the app and the response time is usually good

3) Access to a real person over the phone or in person if there is a problem to be solved
I've never had a problem getting through to their phone line on the rare occasions I have had to

4) Security
I've had three frauds on my card in the last 5 years. All dealt with very professionally

5) Stability - i.e. lack of outages
No outages

6) Access to a branch
Local branch has queues but I rarely need to go in,

7) Charges - availability of free banking
I have a switch account which has free banking for life written into the T&Cs.

8) Ease of actually opening an account
It was very easy when I did it, years ago

9) Availability of an overdraft
No idea. I'm sure I have one but I never use it.

10) Availability of a mortgage

Not relevant to me,

I'm with PTSB for years. Like Huskerdu, I really like the, I've free banking, if I have a problem I can speak to someone. The app is good, the website is good. I'll stay with PTSB. Very happy customer. ( I hope I didn't just jinx this!)

Hi Thirsty

Very helpful assessment.

Thirsty said:

6) Access to a branch
Dire

Click to expand...

Could you expand on this?
Dire because it's not near you or dire because it has long queues?

Brendan

PTSB since 1990 , bought our first house in 1991 with mortgage from same. 30 years later still same situation.

Technology wise, I find the app and internet banking very good and has been since first launched. I like to import statements into excel monthly and analyse spending.

We really have no complaints, never had an issue with fraud or overcharging were free banking until last year, now €18 a qtr the fee for overdraft facilities of €25 was a bit saucy but we rarely use it and if we dropped the limit to say €1k charge would be the same.

Fx rates on non euro purchases is acceptable as is the fee , but when I showed my wife those she couldn't believe the amount.

My wife travels for work and from Australia to China, US and most of Europe never an issue with Debit Card either using to purchase or cash withdrawals. Again FX rates ok

Setting up standing orders, DDs and bill payments very easy and easily controlled.

Branch withdrawals gone, daily limit on DD card of €1500 has caused a few issues when buying big ticket items .

Customer care via phone is a disaster, IVR voice is beyond my hearing and they have no alternative such as online chat for us fairly deaf people.

Didn't like the current account change waste of money in my view, or the DD "Hogan" description which we only encountered last month as we were changed from SO to DD.

Thirsty said:

I have to repeatedly do MFA when looking for statements on each account.

Click to expand...

huskerdu said:

MFA is a pain, but I accept that it has to be done

Click to expand...

On my AIB account

1) I log in from my pc
2) I have to authorise it from my phone - is that MFA?
3) Apart from payments, I can do everything else online as far as I know without going to my phone.
4) When I want to pay an existing payee, I don't need to do anything else. Just pay them.
5) If I pay a new person or amend an existing payee, I need to put my debit card in a little machine

Paul O Mahoney said:

Branch withdrawals gone, daily limit on DD card of €1500 has caused a few issues when buying big ticket items .

Click to expand...

Interesting that branch withdrawals are gone. I haven't paid a large amount of cash for anything in years, so I have no idea if AIB has such a limit or not. I thought that the daily limit for the debit card was much lower. I vaguely remember going into a branch only to be told that I could have got the cash from a machine.


So I can take €600 from an ATM or €1,500 from a CCL machine in a branch. So it's probably the same as ptsb.

I am coming to the conclusion that the thread should be:

"Which bank is most suitable for your particular needs?"

Brendan Burgess said:

On my AIB account

1) I log in from my pc
2) I have to authorise it from my phone - is that MFA?
3) Apart from payments, I can do everything else online as far as I know without going to my phone.
4) When I want to pay an existing payee, I don't need to do anything else. Just pay them.
5) If I pay a new person or amend an existing payee, I need to put my debit card in a little machine

Click to expand...

With PTSB its constant.

Every time I want to look at transactions from over a month ago, I have to MFA again (get an authorisation code from my phone and enter my PIN)

huskerdu said:

3) Access to a real person over the phone or in person if there is a problem to be solved
I've never had a problem getting through to their phone line on the rare occasions I have had to

Click to expand...

horusd said:

if I have a problem I can speak to someone.

Click to expand...

Paul O Mahoney said:

Customer care via phone is a disaster, IVR voice is beyond my hearing

Click to expand...

This shows how difficult it is to do an objective assessment.

huskerdu and horusd find it easy to talk to someone on the phone in ptsb.

Paul, not only doesn't find it easy, but classifies it as a "disaster".

Should people who are hard of hearing pick a bank with a branch near them? Problems don't arise often, but when they do, it's very frustrating not being able to talk to someone.

Brendan Burgess said:

Interesting that branch withdrawals are gone. I haven't paid a large amount of cash for anything in years, so I have no idea if AIB has such a limit or not. I thought that the daily limit for the debit card was much lower. I vaguely remember going into a branch only to be told that I could have got the cash from a machine.

How can I withdraw cash from my account?

You can take up to €600 out of your account from an ATM using your AIB debit card and PIN.

aib.ie

So I can take €600 from an ATM or €1,500 from a CCL machine in a branch. So it's probably the same as ptsb.

Click to expand...

€1500 from the CCL and €700 from the ATM sameday if necessary.

Need to clarify, our Debit Cards have €1500 daily POS limit so if we were buying something for 3k we'd need to be there together.

Brendan Burgess said:

Paul, not only doesn't find it easy, but classifies it as a "disaster".

Click to expand...

It's the entire service, if you call the number you get into the IVR you then choose what you want to do, "speak to an agent " you wait for an eternity or more recently the call stops at 2min 45secs.

If you lock yourself out by getting your pan number wrong and you call you cant access any services, so down to the branch and get help which they did but I had to wait for 30mins.

First world issues I know, but a simple chat service, verification by numbers from PAN would help .