Co Operative Bank Review

Overall Rating

Regarding the online bank Smile, it invests ethically. This is its only good point as far as I am concerned.

Huge fees for going over your overdraft facilities. I was charged £30 for going over by 2pence AND there was money coming into my account at the time. Although it is an online bank it's online facilities are much poorer than those of HSBC (my other bank) so it is hard to tell from looking how much cleared funds you have in your account, making it easier to go voerdrawn, making it easier for them to make huge charges.

I joined smile because it was important to my to put my money in a bank which invests ethically. As anyone knows, switching bank accounts is no easy task, and with Smile as it is the online arm of the co-operative you don't get the perks of high street banks which make life a lot easier. i.e. being able to pay in money via a branch or make an enquiry. However, I thought small personal sacrifices for the great good. Sadly, it's been one charge after another since I joined. As I am not well off and have no savings I can live close to the zero mark of my account towards the end of the month. However as an HSBC customer I only went over my limit accidntaly twice in 12 years. Smile has an over-simple website and it is extremely difficult to make accurate predictions about money coming in and out of your account. In addition, transactions are very slow taking perhaps one or 2 extra days to process than a normal bank. A a result in 6 months I have gone over my limit a few times. While I can't blame smile for this I do find their charges unethical. £30 for any amount you go over your limit (i.e. 2pence on one occassion). Once you pay money into your account it takes 3 days to clear and in the mean time they charge you again ( £20) for being £30.02 over you limit. Despite the fact they must be able to tell that you put funds in straight away to cover the mistake! I am going to have to go through the palaver of switching back to a high street bank. Unfortunately, being online might sounds great on paper but what it means in reality is that you can never discuss your financial issues with a human face to face and this means the bank can get away with outrageous charges and behaviour without having to face the consequences.