Recommend me a business Bank Account

[riz1]

Planning to set up a partnership and will need to open a business account for it.
Preferably free to run.
Any recommendations?

[Nirvana]

check out Abbey:

http://www.anbusiness.com/

many of the small businesses (start-ups) that i know recommend it highly.

[riz1]

Thanks.
They were on my list as they offer free business banking for life but didnt know if that was saddled with poor service

[NicolaUK]

Rbs.

[farmroad38]

I used to use Cater Allen (now part of Santander) - pretty good rates of interest, even on the current account, and free for up to 30 transactions a month.

http://www.caterallen.co.uk/BusinessBanking/Default.aspx?pid=4

[Grandmaster]

Beware of Abbey - they're perfectly adequate for UK business, but by my calculations they managed to 'lose' around $38,000 USD from cheques I sent in and overseas wire transfers. Totally and utterly inept - the fact that I had to send off cheques and couldn't pay them in at the branch was a key component of that.

I'm with Barclays now and while they charge for their services, at least I can pay in my cheques and more than that, there's a real, actual bloke to talk to face-to-face if they cock anything up. Abbey's free service gave me none of these things.

[minstap]

a agree with Grandmaster. we started our business 4 years ago and abbey were fine (straight forward internet banking and cheque banking) but now we've doing considerably more trade and a bit with overseas we've had a few hiccups with abbey making money 'dissapear' with no explanation for international bank transfers... the follow up service is poo too along with them not responding to my official complaint. needless to say we're moving to Natwest where we've got our own guy who will be our contact and our first (and hopefully) only point of contact for all matters bank related.
hope that helps you. it costs us £25/month but it is worth its weight especially if it means our problems are 'taken care of'.

having said all that, my advice is to spend an hour with your business partner talking about the possible type of transactions you will be performing. if simple money in and out for uk (cheque, BACS etc) then most banks will do the job pretty well (and free). if you are specialising and need focus certain area of your transactions, make a list of what they are and how you'll be doing them and sit down with different banks (in person i'd reccomend) to find out what each bank will do to help you the most.

(my english is pooo but i hope that helps you decide)
any Qs just shout.

[riz1]

It is going to be UK based and simple stuff so Abbey should be able to come with that.
I agree though that I will also ask my own bank at the very least to see what they would offer

[riz1]

Just to update.
Been to Abbey twice now [when I found a spare few mins/no appt] and no-one been available to see me.
Natwest/TSB/HSBC all runs accounts that are "free" to run [after free 2 year period] online/telephone.
Of these HSBC don't even charge a monthly fee and allow 20 cheques a month and a set figure free of cash withdrawl etc so should be effectively free to run for anyone who does payments etc etc online [like i would propose to do]