First Direct Internet Banking www.firstdirect.com Review

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First Direct Internet Banking www.firstdirect.com
3.4 stars
Average rating for this product is: 3.4 out of 5

From 10 ratings and 76 reviews

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carpsio's Review of First Direct Internet Banking www.firstdirect.com

5th Aug 2008

Overall Rating

4 stars
  • Value for money
    5 stars
  • Ease of Use
    4 stars
  • Used service for
    1 year and over
Good Points

The information you see always tallies with what you hear if you phone up, so it seems to be accurate and reliable if you're using it for your accounting. Most of the day to day transactions I need to use are easy to carry out online.


Bad Points

Transfers between accounts and cards could be clearer - you can't name payment destinations so have to decipher a string of letters.


General Comments

Having been with First Direct for something like 15 years, and using the website as my main point of contact with the bank for a little over 5 years now, very rarely has it failed to do what I need it to do. Unlike a couple of other online banks I've used, the interface is very simple to navigate round and there aren't constant nagging efforts to sell you other products - which is a welcome relief.

You can simply log in, see your balance and it's pretty easy to retrieve details for previous months if you need to. Your accounts and cards are listed for viewing through a drop-down menu, which is fine.

My only gripe in terms of day-to-day use is that when you set up a "payment destination" (for example a VISA card) that you wish to transfer money to from time to time, you don't have the opportunity to give it a name. In effect, this means that when you're trying to transfer money to that destination, you are presented with a big string of numbers. If you have more than one VISA card listed, for example, this relies on you being familiar enough with their numbers to choose the right one. On a couple of occasions I've transferred money to the wrong card. A phonecall to the bank afterwards has soon sorted it out, but it should be simple for them to resolve this.

On a related note (although not strictly related to the website) the staff at First Direct must have a similar system, and on at least 4 occasions over the last 2 years they have transferred money to the wrong destination which has led to us receiving charges etc which we've had to pursue through a series of phonecalls. You'd think that would be telling them something, but apparently not.

Overall though, it's simple, easy to use and perfectly adequate for day to day banking of most kinds.

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