A&L for savers. (Alliance & Leicester)

Member Name: stokx

Product:	Alliance & Leicester
Date:	14/01/09 (32 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good rates & cash back

Disadvantages: Lots of restrictive terms and conditions, age resrictsions on best accounts.

Alliance & Leicester have some very good current accounts; you can get £150 for switching and paying in £1000 a month made up of £100 from the bank and £50 from a cash back web site such as we promise to.
Their premier 21 current account pays 8% interest on balances up to £1000 which beats even regular savings rates at other banks.
A&L has a 3.6% savings account but there are access restrictions and better rates are available from Tesco's and ING.
Their Easy ISA pays 3.5% (I believe the market leader pays 0.1% more).
The online banking is easy to use is supposed to allow you to transfer money quickly between both internal and external accounts via a drop down menu on the accounts overview page, this is a bit hit and miss as some accounts listed on the online service aren't available on the menu but you can still transfer elsewhere on the site.
Log in is secure as you need three different codes, and a unique picture phrase combination for each user protects against phishing.
I don't like the way they have "user numbers" instead of account numbers because I imagine some people will end up sending money to the wrong place.
You have to phone up to get your sort code and your account number is not the sequence on your card; for me it is the last 8 digits in what is called the account number online, as some account numbers are 8 digits and others are 9 this is potentially very confusing.
Luckily phone banking is fast and you use all the same details as online (no security words).
You can get the acc no. and sort code via A completely automated call but this just makes me angry because in proves they know everyone will need that info yet they try to hide it just to increase phone revenue and possibly even bank charges when people's cash doesn't arrive.

Summary: Worth it for the rates.