Direct Banking: Be your Own Bank Manager. (royalbankofscotland.co.uk)

Member Name: NathalieB

Product:	royalbankofscotland.co.uk
Date:	04/08/00 (601 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Complete hassle free banking. Free.

Disadvantages: None as long as your computer works.

We have been using the Royal Bank of Scotland for a number of years and as far as banks goes they are as good or as bad as the next one. We had a fair share of hiccups dealing with their staff and even thought at one point that we would be better off sticking our cash under the mattress and be done with it.

Then, they sent us a little leaflet about their new ‘Direct Banking’, which at the time was banking over the telephone... Hooray! No more ‘human’ contact needed!

We started using it straight away.

Direct Banking requires a few things to be set up before use ie. Password, security number, account number, bill payment etc. and you will need a phone with the right dialling tone. From that day forward we didn’t need them to do anything for us, we could transfer our money from one account to the other, pay bills etc. at any time day or night. It was great, but not as great as what came next:

Direct Banking through the Internet: even easier, better, clearer, you know exactly where your money is, how much you have, you can pay almost all your bills – no stamps required, check on your direct debits or even cancel them online without need for a confirming letter, transfer money from one account to the other, set up a budget, and many other things.

How to set it up? It was very straight forward, we applied on the Royal Bank of Scotland website and a couple of days later we received from RBS an enormously long password (only to be entered once) in a safe envelope, we had to go to their website with it and download the software, insert this password plus a few other security codes. It took a few minutes to set it up but then we were ready to use it, and do all the things mentioned above, transfer, bill payments, apply for a loan...

It definitely made our lives a lot easier since we don’t have to deal with them personally. Call us antisocial if you want
but our errors have been far less than theirs over the years and we have much better control over our money. We used to get very annoyed with them when they charged us for going overdrawn, even when we had sufficient funds in another account. Isn’t it funny how banks never try and help to save you such unnecessary charges? Touch wood but since using Direct Banking online we have never had any of these charges since.

We thoroughly recommend it.

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