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Post by moonraker on Jul 27, 2016 19:33:40 GMT
What would you say is a reasonable time for a bank or building society to open a new on-line account? For me, the average is three or four working days, with a few managing it in under half-an-hour.
It's just taken Tesco Bank twenty days from the time I applied on-line until I got a snail-mail letter saying I was able to transfer money in (and doing this by asking Tesco Bank to take money from my nominated account would have taken five more days though, unlike with a competitor offering a similar account, I could - and did - instruct my bank to put money in to Tesco within one day).
Most organisations seem able to verify my ID electronically, but five days after my initial application I got a snaíl-mail letter from Tesco wanting paper proof and enclosing a second-class SAE.
The bank is run by the Royal Bank of Scotland. Not exactly Tesco Express.
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Post by moonraker on Jul 28, 2016 5:26:21 GMT
Only the fact that they were offering a market-leading fixed rate made me maintain my application. I'd come to the end of my bonus year with a similar account run by Birmingham Midshires and other banks/societies were offering variable rates.
With the Royal Bank of Scotland warning of the possibility of negative interest rates for business customers and its use of second-class mail to communicate with me about setting up my Tesco account, I guess it may be a case of "every little helps" when it comes to keeping its costs down.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Jul 28, 2016 10:27:51 GMT
My Partner had similar great service from Sainsbury, iirc .. although it only took 2 weeks to open the account, it took nearly 6 weeks to close it, since she lacked both driving license and current passport, and getting the last £87 or whatever it was out and closing the account (by transfer to another bank a/c in her name) required an act of (Scottish, iirc) Parliament. This was partly because, after 3 years of not much use, she had forgotten her login details, and there was no way they were ever going to reset them for her.
I think this is an example of 'you get what you pay for' .. if you want high rates you wind up (unless you are careful and lucky, both) with second class post, third class service, and a customer help desk in Uzbekistan. 8<. In both these cases the accounts are, as you said, run by some third or fourth party, so finding the right person/organization to shout at is fairly hopeless. Unless it is a million quid I'd rather take a smidge less interest and deal with people whose desks I can go and sit on (Nationwide, Coop bank, First Direct (sort of), etc.) if necessary.
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Post by moonraker on Jul 29, 2016 9:37:19 GMT
I've sent off a letter to Tesco Bank asking why it took them so long; no doubt I'll get back some PR guff. If so, I might be tempted to copy the correspondence to someone responsible for Tesco plc's corporate image.
Comparable letters have produced some reasonable responses in the past, though I had to push very hard when Capita messed up my Civil Service pension. I could never get one building society's voice recognition system to understand me, and a mild complaint got me a few pounds in compensation (not that I was after money in this instance.)
I tried to open an account with another society just as it was being taken over by Santander, who then couldn't explain why my application to save with them was declined. A problem with migrating computerised records, I suspect. I got a sequence of letters, one saying that perhaps I had a poor credit rating (I have an excellent rating, and I wanted to invest, not borrow), then another addressed to my dead mother at a garbled address where she'd never lived; in the end to keep me quiet they gave me £50.
I checked with one bank that they would accept investments for my mother (when she was alive) using her power of attorney. They said "yes", then returned the cheque saying that the letter from her nursing-home confirming she was a resident didn't have its address on it - in fact it was there, at the bottom, not the top. Ironically the bank's letter didn't have its address on it. Eventually it said that it didn't accept POA investments after all. The bank went bust four years later.
Rant over, I feel better now!
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Post by moonraker on Feb 21, 2017 16:00:34 GMT
Just applied for a new account with IKANO. My phone call with a query was answered at once and dealt with very pleasantly. Applied on line, got acknowledgement that all was OK within 10 minutes. If IKANO ((which has links to IKEA) can do it, why can't TESCO?
I did consider a challenger bank but it wouldn't accept a cheque (which some organisations like as proof of ID), there was an insufficient window in which to make daily payments, and I baulked at paying my High Street Bank £23 to send the money to them in one lump sum.
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dan83
Posts: 243 
Likes: 84
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Post by dan83 on Feb 21, 2017 20:29:45 GMT
All my dealings with Tesco bank have been great.
It does take time to open an account with them but that their method. If you don't like it, you could vote with your feet and open an account elsewhere.
Before I moved in to P2P, I was one of them people who have loads of accounts in different banks and moved money around for anything between 3%-5%. There are a few banks which are slow at opening accounts.
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Post by moonraker on Feb 22, 2017 13:10:53 GMT
All my dealings with Tesco bank have been great. It does take time to open an account with them but that their method. If you don't like it, you could vote with your feet and open an account elsewhere. Before I moved in to P2P, I was one of them people who have loads of accounts in different banks and moved money around for anything between 3%-5%. There are a few banks which are slow at opening accounts. I'm running out of banks (mostly challenger ones) offering the best rates at which to invest. Some look tempting but occasionally there's a glitch - such as "no opening cheques". At the time, Tesco was offering one of the very few accounts that suited my needs at the time, and the rate was good. Whatever, surely few can disagree that twenty days is ridiculous. Had Tesco used first-class mail (or even email) for its various communications and SAEs, that would have halved the time.
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dan83
Posts: 243
Likes: 84
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Post by dan83 on Feb 26, 2017 0:05:06 GMT
All my dealings with Tesco bank have been great. It does take time to open an account with them but that their method. If you don't like it, you could vote with your feet and open an account elsewhere. Before I moved in to P2P, I was one of them people who have loads of accounts in different banks and moved money around for anything between 3%-5%. There are a few banks which are slow at opening accounts. I'm running out of banks (mostly challenger ones) offering the best rates at which to invest. Some look tempting but occasionally there's a glitch - such as "no opening cheques". At the time, Tesco was offering one of the very few accounts that suited my needs at the time, and the rate was good. Whatever, surely few can disagree that twenty days is ridiculous. Had Tesco used first-class mail (or even email) for its various communications and SAEs, that would have halved the time. I'm sure the only thing Tesco sent me, was a piece of paper to sign then send it back, but I'm sure M&S & HSBC also done the same. For me co-op was the worst. I think we have done the same thing, loads of current accounts with money flying all over the place to meet min pay ins. When all the internet rates dropped, I ditched them all and put everything into P2P.
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Post by moonraker on Mar 17, 2017 19:59:27 GMT
I've just opened a new account as a new customer with another challenger bank. I clicked "submit" and within ten seconds had an email confirming that my account "has been successfully opened and is ready to fund". Even allowing for the marvels of modern technology, how could they verify my details so quickly? Not that I'm complaining.
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