Halifax - A Good Bank (Halifax)

Member Name: Mrs-LT

Product:	Halifax
Date:	30/01/09 (155 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good telephone banking service, wide range of accounts

Disadvantages: I don't like the in-branch appointments system

My parents opened a savings account with Halifax for me when I was a baby, and so my relationship with them began. I can only write about Halifax as I have never looked at changing - too much hassle and I have had no real reason to. My husband has also held an account with Halifax since he was a child and between us we have 3 current accounts (1 each and a joint), 1 ISA Saver, 1 Instant Saver and 1 Cardcash (my account from my childhood which they have never closed). We also opened a save-4-it account for our LO when he was just 4 days old and in the last month both opened a Children's Regular Saver account for him. I had a Halifax One credit card for a couple of years and my husband still has one...so all in all I think I have sufficient experience of Halifax to write a review on them.

As I am sure you will appreciate, over decades of banking with Halifax my stories about various things would be never-ending. So I am going to stick to a few things that I liked and disliked about Halifax in the last couple of years.

Firstly how can you write about any bank without mentioning bank charges? Well yes, they are unfair and extortionate but the simple fact is that if you have sufficient funds in your account to cover transactions you never need to be on the receiving end of one. On the very rare occasions where (through our own errors) we have been charged, Halifax have always immediately refunded the charges through one quick call to Customer Services. They will refund 2 charges per account in 12 months as a goodwill gesture and I think this is a very fair policy - once or twice can be a genuine mistake, any more and you are just being irresponsible with your money.

The telephone banking service is fantastic. All UK call centres and every advisor I have spoken to (and I have spoken to lots) has been extremely pleasant and helful. The number is 08457203040 and what I love is that after entering your account details on the telephone keypad and listening to your balance you can then press *0 at any time to speak to an advisor. This is far preferable to the many call centres which make you listen to menu after menu of options before conceding that you may actually need to speak to a real person.

Branch staff are by and large always courteous and helpful and the counter is usually well staffed.

Instant transfers between Halifax accounts (or up to 2 hours for larger amounts) is fantastic and again very accessible to all.

If you lose your card, they will send you a new one within 7 days and I have never waited that long for one.

Statements are sent every four months unless you request monthly ones. They have just changed the style of them and they are a bit too complicated for my liking, I far preferred the traditional ones.

However, I do have some negative things to say about Halifax too. The interest rates are in free-fall (due to the recession, and not the bank's fault) but the website is not kept current with the rates. Last week we went to set up my husband's Children's Regular Saver expecting to get the same 8% rate I had signed up for the previous week, yet in branch we were told it had gone down to 7%. We were disappointed but that is just typical of things at the moment, however I was annoyed to find the online rate still advertised as 8%. The rates should be changed instantly online and in literature as soon as they change, or they chould honour the publicised rates.

Also, I hate the fact that you cannot just walk into a branch and set up a basic savings account when there are always a couple of staff milling around doing nothing. We were sent away for 20 minutes then told we could be seen to open our Regular Saver, yet someone was standing there with nothing to do....this did not annoy me half as much as the 20 extra minutes AFTER our appointment time that we waited despite the fact that again there were a few staff milling around. I can understand the need for appointments for complicated mortgage and loan applications but the account which I am referring to takes less than 5 minutes to set up. Also, our local branch does not have appointments until the following week quite often.

Overall though, I am completely satisfied with Halifax.

Summary: I can never imagine us switching to a different bank