Alliance & Leicester

Reasonable service when working but be aware that paid in cheques take an age to clear so, although you get banking without any actual charges, they get their money by holding on to your cash. Also the website support is pitiful (to be kind) - I guess they save money by having no competent staff available at weekends which means if the system goes down, as it did last weekend, you can forget about using your money until at least Monday lunchtime! Avoid Avoid Avoid as your main bank account!

Alliance and Leicester is a growing a very successful bank, with a lot of help from the banking group santander. I have only had an A+L account for over 3 months and find it one of the best banks I've been with. I have split the review inot sections which I beleive is important for a bank to be successful and reted them /10 along with a comment. In this review I'll be reviewing the Alliance and Leicester Current Accounts Interest Rates: 9/10 For the first year once you have join A+L they award you 6% AER for balances up to £2,500 which is one of the highest interests rates possible at the moment. This means that with you £2,500+ kept in ...  Read the complete review

I currently have a joint current account and two joint savings accounts with Alliance and Leicester and I am fairly pleased with the service I receive from them. We joined this bank when we were looking around for a joint account, as we were moving in together. We chose the Premier Direct Current Account due to the overdraft facility and the fact that the offer at the time was a decent interest rate on any credit balance on the account. The account came with a linked savings account which we didn't really need at the time but have used since. After about a year using the bank we have now opened another savings account with a higher interest rate. ...  Read the complete review

Alliance and liecester is a fraud... i have been charged £250 so far for going £0.85 overdrawn. this bank should be scrapped!!! they dont even have real people you can talk to @ their few branches in london. you have to talk over the phone as their current, premium and savings accounts are run over the phone. my advice for anyone looking to open an account is that this bank should not be on your list of options. try loyds bank or hsbc ..or better off my own bank.... barclays.

This bank takes 1 day for inter-account online transfers between my own A&L accounts. And if I send money to my bank accounts at other banks or to someone else, it takes upto 3 days. This is such a big pain...
Compared to this, money transfers at every other bank I know of, are done instantly, within seconds. I don't know whether this is deliberate or other wise, but I do know that I am closing my A&L accounts soon. 6% on first £2500 is not enough to compensate for this discomfort.
There are other minor flaws, but overall other features seemed fine.