Intelligent Finance Reviews

**I'm reviewing this bank purely as a saver and my thoughts should be viewed in this light!** At the beginning of this year I decided that sitting under an umbrella of debts gathered during my time as a student was less than beneficial to both my prospects of ever getting a mortgage and more importantly, my sanity :-) I ...

When I needed a new current account (well my very first one really), I decided to begin my hunt on the internet. Seeing as this was going to be my first “proper” account and I’d never had any form of credit, my credit score was quite low and many of the banks either refused to allow me to open account, or placed huge restrictions on what I would ...

You will still need a high street branch - Advantages: Offsetting, Rates, website - Disadvantages: No branches, No common sense, Faceless

Unintelligant Finance - Advantages: Will lend more than other financial institutions. - Disadvantages: Very disorganised., You can only speak to call centers., Very poor service

My main reason for changing to IF was because of the offsetting. It comes across as though it's complicated but it's actually pretty simple really and it DOES save you money :) Well it has saved me money at any rate! The basic idea is this: normally you pay interest on your credit cards, loans, etc., and receive interest on ...

The title sounds like a review for "ALIEN"; to be honest this as been my experience of INTELLIGENT FINANCE so far. Anyway, let?s try and be objective. I tried to set up accounts with IF over a year ago, it took them ...

IF has to be the worst bank on the net. Unfortunately it does have the best value mortgages on or off line though. Let's start with the interface. The login is overly complex, the website is slow, and worst of all - it is totally paranoid. I must have been locked out of my account three times in the last year and I am well used to ...

Like other correspondents I found actually opening an account with IF a staggeringly frustrating and prolonged experience, with endless requests for the same information, and inability to talk to anyone sensible who could go off script. On at least three occasions I was told categorically that one final piece of information was required, only for ...

Well, I have to say that the idea of what Intelligent Finance had to offer was both appealing and a perfect deal for me. Being able to deal with everything online, having all of my accounts in the same portol and of course their consolodation of interest rates was great - the problems started when cheques written six months ago ...

IF - Great Alternative to High Street Banks - Advantages: Easy to Use, New Concept Banking, Good Customer Service - Disadvantages: Internet Dependent, Help System Unclear

I switched from NatWest to IF (Intelligent Finance) a few months ago and well, lets just say not everything went to plan! I filled in my details on their web site, only to get to the last page and find a good old "HTTP Error 500" problems with server. So I rang them to complete my application and they told me everything was OK, ...

My wife and I have now been a year with IF. We have got our mortgage, savings and current account under one roof and really appreciate the single overview. We have been highly impressed by the service, though sometimes it can take a little long to speak to a human person. I do think you have to be reasonable about that as you can't ...

If you have a loan and a mortgage, and don't pay off the full balance on your credit card every month, it makes sense to be able to off-set credit balances in savings and current accounts against these for a better combined interest rate. However, if you are in credit most of the time, there are other aspects that need to be looked ...

I must say I was surprised to see so many critical reviews of Intelligent Finance and I felt I must redress the balance somewhat as I have had a completely different experience with them. Intelligent Finance are a division of Halifax plc. They are solely internet based which is ideal for a lazy bones like me. Having come across a ...

I opened my account in March 2001 because I wanted a switch card to purchase things off the internet and the Natwest refused to give me one. Places accepting Solo were rare, I was not happy. I was also looking for a higher rate of interest because all Natwest gave was about 0.1%. I'll stop complaining about Natwest now (I'll save ...

The concept of offsetting one's savings against one's Mortgage is a brilliant one, which has since been copied by a number of banks and building societies. I have always found IF's customer service to be acceptable. It's not brilliant, but one can't have everything. If one wants brilliant customer service, then one has ...

6 weeks ago I started to open a Savings account with IF via their website. The web signup process is very slick. From that point on it's been a disaster. I've had to chase them every so often to see where they were with the application process, the staff never seem to know where we are or what the process is, they say they'll ...

I joined IF.COM about a month ago, after all the paperwork was finally finished. So, I decided to log into the site and have a look at my "jar" as the plan is called. I found the site difficult to understand and to navigate. I didn't get any answers to the questions I had and the account pack that i received through the post did not ...

The idea behind Intelligent Finance is a good one: put all your financial eggs in one basket, so you can set off your "amounts borrowed" against those accounts in credit, and only pay interest on the difference. Unfortunately the idea is marred by the originator's failure to understand human nature both in its software ...

This is quite a detailed opinion but hopefully you will find it very useful on deciding whether to take out a plan. Intelligent Finance plans are great for people who have a number of bank or savings accounts with a mortgage, I won't go into detail about how they work as you have probably already looked into that. Firstly, if ...