Bank Of Scotland Direct Business Cheque Account Review

Bank Of Scotland Direct Business Cheque Account

The Bank of Scotland Direct Business Cheque Account promises Free business banking forever.

If you're tired of paying bank charges and you're happy to operate your account entirely by phone, post or Internet then this could be for you.

Here's the deal: the following transactions are free no matter how much cash you have in your business bank account.

Free Direct Debits
Free Standing Orders
Free ATM withdrawals
Free cheque pay-ins

It is also free to write cheques if you maintain a monthly cleared balance of £5,000 or more and write 100 cheques or less per month.

Overdrafts can be arranged quickly, over the phone. You don't have to pay any initial or annual fees. Rates are negotiable and you only incur interest on the overdraft if you use it.

Bank Of Scotland pay you interest on your DBCA as standard - there's no need to apply for special terms. Rates are linked to Bank of Scotland Base Rate on balances above £5,000.

Bank of Scotland will assign you a team of named Business Banking Managers who will get to know you and your business. They're empowered to make decisions on significant requests such as term loans, overdraft facilities or more complex matters such as asset finance and insurance. There's no need to make an appointment and leave your workplace. You just call BOS business banking to discuss your requirements.

Relationship Managers are available from 8am to 6pm. Supporting them are Customer Service Advisers who can handle the majority of your routine banking requirements such as balance information and transferring funds. They are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Everything you'd expect from a business current account including a cheque book, cash card, monthly statements - they're all part of the service and there's no charge for any of them.

Up to £2,500 in cash can be deposited using the Bank Of Scotland couriered secure envelope service. Just hand in the security sealed envelope at any post office and it will be couriered to the Bank of Scotland clearing house and credited to your account the next working day. You can also enclose as many cheques as you wish and these will clear within the normal cycle. Insurance costs £6 per envelope but, unlike some other banks, there are no charges for crediting your cheques.

Cheques can also be sent using pre-paid envelopes through the normal postal service.

A Fee-free Business Visa card is also available.
You pay no fee for the first 12 months and receive up to 41 days interest-free credit.

Bank of Scotland assure also assure us that there are no transaction charges and additional assistance for start-up businesses is available.

Your Comments/Opinions

how mush to write a cheque if under £5000 or over drawn ?

paul whyers

This account is no longer attractive. Bank of Scotland has announced savage reductions in interest rates and increased chargs. The visa card is not fee-free; it is £30.00 per year.

Tim Anderson

Well, at least it doesn't sound half as bad as the Alliance and Leicester's business bank account. What a joke. They couldn't even get our names right on the cards, the passwords were sent to our address without a name or a company name on it (we share a building with 10 other companies - thank god we have an honest receptionist!!) and you create your own sort codes, depending on whether you have a seven or a nine digit account number (last time I checked, all bank account numbers were 8 digits). Plus, you need to use different sort codes depeending on the type of transaction you make, and you have to create a password for each and every transaction you make. Oh, and as an added bonus you're restricted to using a single nominated post office. The whole set up smaks of ex-civil server inefficiency and bureaucratic overkill. How they win any awards is beyond me, it's just a joke. I even started to doubt my own IQ just reading their *starter* pack, then had to repeatedly remind myself that I have a BSc(Hons) in Computer Science and run a company that writes complex database performance tuning software. Shudder. By comparison, BoS sound like heaven - Avoid Alliance and Leicester at all costs ! PS : Have sent all of our cheque books and cards back to them and stuck with Abbey - not perfect, but at least they get the basics right.

r_parde

I've just closed my Bank of Scotland Direct Business Cheque Account and joined Alliance & Leicester. BoS now have a fee of £15 per month unless you maintain a balance of £5000. A&L only charge £5 per month if you pay in less than £1000 that month. If you pay in more than a grand it's free. The sort code/account number situation with A&L isn't that hard to get your head around. If you have a 7 digit account number you just add a zero in front to make it 8 digits. You then have two sort codes, one for Direct Debits and the other for everything else. It is a little more complicated for people with nine digit account numbers, but I was given an 8 digit account number so I assume 8 digits are standard now. You don't have to create a password for every transaction. For BACS payments you set up the recipient's info so you can select them via a dropdown menu, the person logged in then has to be authorised to make payments. This is a little complicated if you don't consult the guide, but once you read the instructions it's easy. For anyone who has a number of employees accessing the account it allows you to put limits on them and set up groups with different levels of access. BoS haven't got this on their site. Overall, the BoS site is less complicated but hasn't got as many features. Also, BoS never once provided answers to any quiries I made via their online messaging facilty, they just told me to phone customer services! Although it's early days I'm happy with Alliance & Leicester so far and feel the above post was a little harsh. This info was correct as of 27/01/07.

David.

We turn over around £750k a year and have had a Direct Business Cheque Account with BOS for nearly 6 years. During that time we have incurred a total of £2.00 bank charges. We don't borrow money and need only simple banking services plus a couple of credit cards. The service is excellent and very cost effective providing that you have £5,000 to keep in the current account. We have an e-business account that we keep spare cash in and use the Internet each evening to transfer money from one to the other. If we ever forget (this happens once a year or so) a very pleasant lady phones me9am the next morning to warn me.

Stuart Wild

we use a direct cheque account for our day-to-day transactions, combined with a BOS off-set loan for our savings and mortgage. we get the best of both worlds, and have saved 100s of pounds each year compared to any other business bank that i know of.

r nunns

what is your bussiness address please