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Best Online Banks in the UK

Choosing the right digital bank for you will depend a lot on your financial needs and goals. You might want to look at the licenses and guarantees of the bank. It can make a big difference if they are FSCS-protected, if there are any hidden fees, and if you can set up direct debits and standing orders.

We found a list of the best online banks in the UK, by looking into dozens of mobile challenger banks in the UK and around the world. We’ll start by looking at the best digital banks in each category, then move on to the best digital banks overall.

Most of the UK’s digital banks, like Monzo, Revolut, Starling, Curve, and Atom, offer in-app support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is much better than the call-center support that most traditional banks offer.

But what else do UK digital banks have that traditional banks don’t, and what should you look for when picking the right digital bank for you?

When choosing a mobile bank, you should always check sites like TrustPilot to see what other users have to say and where these banking apps fall short.

You can also look at a separate review of each of the following challenger banks on our site.

 

Best online banks in the UK & overall

best-overall-bank
Starling Bank - logo

 

Starling

Best online Bank in the UK for Best current account

Starling Bank is the best digital banking app on the UK market right now, even though it is far behind Monzo and Revolut in terms of downloads and users.

We have nothing but good things to say about this new bank, and we want even more people in the UK to use it. Starling Bank is a great alternative to your regular bank and to neobanks, which are the new kids on the block.

Since their core banking services are still free, we can recommend them without any reservations.

We can’t think of any reason why this shouldn’t be your main account. Even though it doesn’t have a storefront, it doesn’t need one because the app is easy to use and reliable. You can keep track of how much money you spend and apply for financial services right from the app.

It has been chosen as the best current account for four years in a row, and there isn’t much else to say about it. The best thing about Starling personal accounts is that there are no monthly fees and no fees when you use your card abroad or take money out of an ATM.

Revolut bank - logo

Revolut Metal

Best online Bank in the UK for Best paid personal account

The top account from Revolut has everything and more. The Metal Account costs £12.99 and express shipping is free.

You can get your stylish Revolut Metal Card in 5 different colors that look great, but aren’t too loud. They are contactless, of course, and the Metal account as a whole has a lot of features.

You get access to 5 Junior accounts, cashback on payments made with metal cards, purchase protection of up to £10,000 per year, ticket protection, return protection, an unlimited number of disposable virtual cards, and a daily interest rate of up to 0.65% AER on savings.

Revolut is a jack of all trades, which is clear from the fact that it also lets you trade cryptocurrencies, stocks, and precious metals.

Other benefits of Revolut Metal are:

the ability to spend in more than 150 different currencies at the exchange rate between banks,
trade in 28 or more fiat currencies without a monthly limit,
up to £800 in free ATM withdrawals per month,
Insurance for medical care abroad, lost luggage, and flights,
If your flight is delayed for more than an hour, you and up to three friends can get free passes to a lounge.
…and a lot more

Atom bank - logo

Atom

Best online Bank in the UK for savings accounts

Atom Bank‘s main service is savings accounts, and there are many types of Fixed Savers accounts with competitive interest rates that are easy to find online.

Fixed-term accounts start at £1,000, and the more you save, the more interest you get. Before the account is old enough, you can’t take any money out of it. The length of time to save can be anywhere from six months to five years. And the annual interest rate ranges from 0.15 percent AER for a term of 6 months to 1.40 percent AER for a term of 5 years.

Once your fixed rate saver account is set up, you can put money in it until 9 p.m. on the same day of the following week.

Monzo and Revolut

Best online Banks in the UK to get paid early

This is a feature that customers of both Monzo and Revolut can use. You can get your BACS payments, such as your salary, one business day early. Even though it’s only one day and not two like in the US, we’ll take it.

The best part is that getting paid a day early doesn’t cost you any fees or interest.

Monzo bank - logo

Monzo

Best online Bank in the UK for metal cards

The Monzo Metal card, which was made from a single sheet of stainless steel, can only be used by people who pay £15 per month for a Premium account. It only comes in white, which makes it look very classy and unique.

The Premium account is full of features and benefits, such as worldwide family travel insurance, open banking, which lets you connect and manage accounts from other banks, advanced roundups for easy saving, and bill splitting, among others.

You can also use your Monzo card to make free purchases anywhere in the world. In the European Economic Area and other places, there are no fees to use ATMs. Every 30 days, you can take out £600 for free.

Pockit bank - logo

Pockit

Best online Bank in the UK for credit building

Right now, a good credit history might not matter to you, but in the future, it could help you get better deals on loans, mortgages, cell phones, and even furniture. With Pockit, you can build your credit history with just a few clicks.

By signing up for Pockit’s LOQBOX, your monthly payments are reported to the three main Credit Reference Agencies as you pay off the 0% APR loan over 12 months. You choose how much you want to give each month for a year. It can be any amount between £20 and £200.

Monese bank - logo

Monese

Best online Bank in the UK for second chance digital bank

As proof of address, banks often ask for things like utility bills, council tax bills, or a rental contract in your name. With Monese, none of that is necessary. You just need an email address, a phone number, and some kind of ID.

There is also no check of your income or credit history. You will have to take a short video selfie in the app to prove who you are, but that’s it. Easy peasy.

Curve Bank - logo

Curve

Best online Bank in the UK for cashback

Curve offers a rewards program called Curve Cash. There are several cash-back programs in the program, and you can take advantage of more than one at the same time:

Welcome Cashback lets you get 1% cash back on almost every purchase you make with your Curve Card for at least the first 30 days.

Curve Cash is a program where you can choose 3–6 of your favorite retailers from a list of over 100, including Amazon, Deliveroo, TfL, and more. You will get 1% cash back on each purchase.

All you have to do to get points is buy something from one of the stores on the list. Once you have enough points, you can use them to buy things anywhere your Curve Card is accepted, except at ATMs.

Wise bank - logo

Wise

Best online Bank in the UK for international money transfers

Since its start in London in 2011, Wise has worked to make international money transfers cheaper and more clear.

Wise just finds the best exchange rate and adds a small fee on top of that. This is different from big banks and other money transfer services like PayPal, which mark up their “free” transfers by a huge amount.

Smart people use technology to link their bank accounts in different countries. In practice, this means that you don’t send money directly to the person you want to help. Instead, you send money to a Wise account, which then sends money in the local currency to the person you want to help.

The person sending the money saves money on fees, and the person getting it gets it for free in their own currency.

Revolut bank - logo

Revolut

Best online Bank in the UK for investing

With Revolut, you can buy a small share for as little as $1. There are now more than 850 stocks to choose from. Apple, Tesla, and the very popular Zoom are all blue chips.

Revolut is also a great way for people who are just starting out to learn about BTC and other, less well-known cryptocurrencies. Revolut adds a flat fee of either 1.5% or 2.5% (depending on your account) to the price of buying and selling cryptocurrencies to cover the risk of trading. So, it’s easy to invest in cryptocurrency through Revolut, but it could cost you a lot of money.

On the platform, you can use the following cryptocurrencies:

Bitcoins (BTC)
Cash in Bitcoin (BCH)
Ethereum (ETH) (ETH)
Litecoin (LTC)
Ripple (XRP)
Stellar (XLM)
EOS (EOS)
Network OMG (OMG)
0x (ZRX)
Tezos (XTZ)

You can also buy goods in the same way that you buy cryptocurrencies. Commodities trading is available in Revolut from early spring 2020. Not only do they offer gold, but they also offer silver. Soon, you’ll be able to trade other precious metals, so check the commodities trading section of the Revolut app.

ANNA Money - logo

ANNA Money

Best online Bank in the UK for business account

ANNA stands for “Absolutely No-Nonsense Admin.” It is a digital business current account and assistant made for small to medium-sized businesses.

The only difference between their no-frills accounts is the monthly fee, which depends on the size of your business. You can get a current business account and a debit card that meows in less than 10 minutes.

Using your sort code and account number, ANNA makes it easy to transfer money to your business account. ANNA also has a useful tool for sending invoices. Your clients can pay you directly through your ANNA account, and ANNA will even send your clients a reminder to pay.

Expense management, tax service, and reminders, as well as open banking and integration with accounting software, make it worth the price.

Wise bank - logo

Wise

Best online Bank in the UK for freelancers

You need to add Wise to your set of tools for freelancing. A simple Wise application is just a few clicks away if you don’t like leaving your hard-earned money on the table for the big banks to take. Their fees are easy to understand and won’t leave you guessing.
Wise is best known for exchanging currencies and transferring money. They help you avoid sneaky fees and fees that aren’t fair when you do business abroad.

Wise lets you keep almost all of the money you get paid for hard work like writing, coding, video editing, etc. There’s no reason to give money to banks. They already have enough money.

If that wasn’t enough, you can spend this money online or in stores with a debit card in the currency of the country you’re buying from to avoid conversion fees.

 

Best Online Banks in the UK

ANNA Money - logo

ANNA Money

About:

  • Started in 2017
  • Founders: Eduard Panteleev (CEO), Andrei Pachai (CTO), Boris Dyakonov, Daljit Singh, Nikita Filippov, Slava Akulov
  • Accounts for business

Features:

  • You can open an account quickly.
  • The app is simple to use.
  • 1% cashback on purchases.
  • 24/7 customer service in the app.
  • Help with taxes
  • Open banking
  • Automatically match up payments and costs
  • Get from 2 to as many debit cards as you want.

ANNA Money is trying to stand out in a world that is getting more complicated by the minute with a business account and a card that actually meows. ANNA is a welcome addition to the digital banking space in the UK, which is already very full. It’s nice to see that the pricing is easy to understand and that accounts grow as your business does.

The best thing about ANNA’s service is the sleek app and all the helpful features that make business banking much easier. Using this app makes it much easier to keep track of bills and expenses, and the fact that you can add more than one debit card even with the free plan is a big plus.

 

Best online Banks in the UK

Atom bank - logo

Atom bank

About:

  • Founded: 2014
  • Founders: Anthony Thomson, David McCarthy, and Mark Mullen (CEO)
  • Savings, home loans, and loans for businesses

Features:

  • The first bank app in the UK
  • Up to 1.40% AER
  • Open a savings account with £0
  • Unlimited withdrawals

Atom bank accounts are mostly for saving money and getting a mortgage. This means that you can’t get a current account or a bank card. This means that it might not be able to replace your regular bank just yet, but it might be able to offer you a great deal on a financial product.

Atom started a new way of doing banking services and is good at what it does. It has great savings accounts and mortgage offers. Still, it doesn’t have some things that most people need, like a checking account, so it won’t replace your regular bank, at least for now.

Atom bank is one of the best online banks in the UK, definitely worth checking it out.

Coconut bank - logo

Coconut

About:

  • Started in 2016
  • Adam Goodall and Sam O’Connor were the founders (CEO)
  • Bookkeeping and tax 

Features:

  • Opening an account is quick and easy.
  • Tools to help you keep track of your spending and report your income at the end of the year
  • Tax estimation is a way to figure out how much tax you will have to pay at the end of the year.
  • The “Grow” account option gives you more advanced features that help your business grow.
  • FCA-registered

The Coconut app is made to make business banking as easy as possible. Each feature is clear and easy to use. The first thing you see when you open this app is the page about earnings.

From there, users can click on different features to see a tax estimate based on their income, an easy-to-understand record of their spending, and automated reminders when tax returns are due.

People who are just starting their business or who need a bank account for their side business will like that they can choose between a Side Hustle account and a Professional account. This will help them plan their taxes.

Curve Bank - logo

Curve

About: 

  • Started in 2015
  • Founders: Anna Mostyn-Williams, Shachar Bialick (CEO), and Tom Foster-Carter
  • Personal accounts

Features:

  • Mix all of your cards into one
    Curve offers up to 100,000€ in customer protection.
  • Up to €600/m free withdrawals from ATMs abroad
  • 1% Money Back
  • Insurance for travel everywhere
  • Collision insurance for rental cars
  • The Curve app can be used in 31 European countries, from the UK to Spain and Sweden.

Curve Blue is free, and there is no monthly fee. During the first 90 days of your plan, you will get things like 1% cash back from stores like Amazon and Netflix. Curve Black costs €9.99 a month and gives you 1% cash back from three selected stores for an undetermined amount of time.

Curve Metal costs £14.99. For that price, you can get a metal card, mobile phone insurance, rental car collision waiver insurance, access to LoungeKey at airports around the world, and fee-free ATM withdrawals of up to £600 per month from ATMs in other countries.

First Direct bank - logo

First Direct

About:

  • Started in: 1989
  • Chris Pitt is CEO.
  • Parent bank: HSBC UK Bank
  • Accounts for yourself, mortgages, loans, and savings

Features:

  • Accounts for spending and saving
  • At HSBC branches, you can deposit and withdraw cash.
  • It’s easy to set up and take care of all payments.
  • Siri lets iPhone users pay for things.
  • When needed, there is a large network of HSBC branches.

First Direct is a retail bank that does business over the phone and the internet. Its main office is in Leeds, United Kingdom. First Direct has been coming up with new ideas for financial services since 1989. In 2000, it was the first company to offer online banking.

First Direct also started a mobile phone banking service in 2006. This was before the first direct app was made.

First Direct has a great reputation as one of the first real innovators in financial services. This will give many customers peace of mind when they use their well-established internet banking and phone banking services.

The app makes it easy and quick to do everyday banking tasks. However, it doesn’t do much else besides the usual banking tasks.

Gohenry bank - logo

Gohenry

About:

  • Started in 2012
  • Founders: Alex Zivoder (CEO), Dean Brauer, Louise Hill
  • IDT Financial Services Limited is a partner organization.
  • Personal junior accounts

Features:

  • $3.99 or £2.99 a month
  • Prepaid Visa or Mastercard
    card made just for you
  • It’s easy to sign up and add money.
  • Free to try
  • Tasks and savings goals
  • You can get it in the UK or the USA

Digital banking apps make it easier than ever to teach kids about money and budgeting, and gohenry’s kids’ app and card are a big part of that. You can easily add money to your child’s account for a low monthly fee and teach them about saving and budgeting.

Gohenry is easy to join and has great features for kids and their parents. It lets you decide how much money your kids will get each week, how much they can spend, where they can use the card, and what they can do to earn extra money. They even let you try it out for free for a month before you sign up.

Koto bank - logo

Koto

About: 

  • Started in: 2020
  • Founders: Dima Dubilet, Misha Rogalskiy, and Oleg Gorokhovskiy
  • Personal accounts

Features:

  • Payments are made faster and transfers are instant.
  • No ATM charges
  • No fees to do business
  • Set up Direct Debits
  • Keep track of how much you spend.
  • Shake-to-Pay koto players are close by.
  • Koto is the newest challenger in the UK, and it wants to get its first 50,000 customers.

Koto is a simple way to pay for things with your phone. There are no fees for ATM withdrawals, transactions, top-ups, or membership. Check their website to see if you qualify for credit. If you do, you have two options with fair rates and clear fees. It is a great addition to the world of mobile banking.

If you’re often short on cash and need a quick infusion of cash to get you where you need to go, koto is just what you need, if you’re eligible. If you don’t want to have your salary sent directly to the account, you can still use it as a top-up card.

It’s a simple credit card with limits of between £500 and £1,000. The Mastercard doesn’t have any fees, like transaction fees or ATM fees. There are also no monthly or annual subscription fees. It works great at home and abroad.

Mettle Bank - logo

Mettle

About:

  • Started in 2018
  • Founders: Charles Wood, Rachel Booth
  • CEO: Marieke Flament
  • Accounts for business

Features:

  • In minutes, you can fill out an application.
  • A UK business bank account is free to sign up for, set up, and keep up.
  • Customers can make invoices and send them right away with the billing feature.
  • It’s easy to keep track of expenses and upload receipts.
  • The app lets customers set up daily banking tasks.
  • The ability to freeze and unfreeze gives you more security.

The free UK business account from Mettle will be appealing to a wide range of customers, including freelancers, self-employed people, and small businesses.

The fact that there are no fees for any part of the service is a unique selling point for UK business accounts. It also makes the service much easier to use than traditional financial services, which have been around for a long time.

The app itself has a lot of potential. It makes many common business banking tasks, like invoices and expenses, very easy. The tasks are something new in the world of digital business banking.

Molo bank - logo

Molo

About:

  • Started in 2017
  • Founder: Francesca Carlesi (Co-CEO) and Leo Grünstein (Co-CEO)
  • Mortgage

Features:

  • Easy to sign up online
  • Online mortgage applications are quick and can be finished in minutes.
  • They are changing the way mortgages work in the UK. This will make mortgages much easier to get and more fair.
  • Websites that are easy to use
  • Options for limited companies to get a mortgage
  • Options to overpay
  • Highly-rated customer service

Molo makes getting a mortgage very easy and convenient for people who want to buy to let. It is changing the way getting a mortgage has always been done, which has been a long and often unpredictable process.

If you can apply for a mortgage online and get approval in minutes, it makes it less likely that your investment will fail, as long as you meet all the requirements. Molo is currently getting good reviews from customers, which makes it a good choice for people who want to buy to let.

Monese bank - logo

Monese

About:

  • Started in 2013
  • Founder: Norris Koppel (CEO)
  • Personal Accounts

Features:

  • Users can open an account without showing proof of a physical address, utility bills, or a credit history.
  • Use-friendly
  • Complete electronic transactions
  • Use a MasterCard debit card to buy things in person
  • Options for multiple currencies (€ or £)
  • Getting cash out is free.

In 2016, Monese was one of the first companies in the UK to offer only digital money. Monese is used by more than a million people in the European Economic Area (EEA) for their banking needs, and more than three billion transactions are made each year.

Users can open a currency account on Monese without having to show proof of address or go through a credit check. Even though many people think of Monese as a bank, it is not a bank according to federal law.

Monese Bank is one of the best online banks in the UK, definitely worth checking it out.

Monzo bank - logo

Monzo

About:

  • Started in 2015
  • Founders :Gary Dolman, Jason Bates, Jonas Huckestein, Paul Rippon, and Tom Blomfield
  • CEO: TS Anil
  • Accounts for personal and business use

Features:

  • Both in the UK and the US (waitlist)
  • Pay day comes a day early.
  • Sort your money into groups like bills, savings, and spending.
  • Budgeting feature
  • Joint accounts
  • There are no fees for spending money abroad.
  • Use the app to get cash back if they switch energy providers.
  • up to £3000 in overdraft protection.

Monzo has almost 5 million customers right now, and about 40,000 new accounts are opened every week. Monzo wants to be the UK bank with the fastest growth, and it plans to start doing business in the US soon.

Monzo was first introduced in London in 2015, with the goal of giving people a better banking experience. Their plan to give free bank accounts to young customers without making them go through a credit check worked.

There is a sort code, deposit security, and a banking license for these accounts. No long forms need to be filled out, and there are no physical branches.

If you want a better banking experience, you might want to think about Monzo bank. You’ll get customer service around the clock, deposit protection, a cool app with lots of features, and a debit card.

Monzo bank is one of the best online banks in the UK, definitely worth checking it out.

Payoneer bank - logo

Payoneer

About:

  • Started in 2015
  • Founders: Yuval Tal
  • CEO: Scott Galit
  • Business accounts

Features:

  • Signing up online is easy.
  • Good option for small businesses and freelancers
  • Free Mastercard pre-paid
  • Connects to a lot of different markets
  • Withdrawal options that are flexible
  • If used fairly often, there are no account fees.

Businesses and independent workers often use Payoneer. They give you a prepaid Mastercard so that you can use your money right away.

They’ve teamed up with so many online marketplaces that it’s easy to get paid for your services, products, or rentals, for example. Payoneer works with Airbnb, Amazon, Booking.com, Fiver, and Upwork, among others.

Payoneer is used by almost everyone who does business online. Almost everyone who does business online has a Payoneer account. The Payoneer app works great, and you can get a debit card for free if you need one. However, the card isn’t always the cheapest one to use.

Paysend bank - logo

Paysend

About:

  • Started in 2017
  • Founders: Abdul Abdulkerimov, Ronald Millar (CEO)
  • Accounts for people and businesses, money transfers

Features:

  • Signing up online is easy.
  • Send money to more than 90 countries.
  • Fixed-price
  • Paysend link
  • Instant processing
  • Account with Paysend Global
    Send Smartcard Paysend
  • Accounts for business

Paysend has quickly made a name for itself as one of the newest types of modern money transfer services on the market. It was founded in 2017 and has been around since then. The company has only grown in size and number of users because it has come up with new ways to transfer money, like letting people pay with their cards or bank accounts.

By focusing on “next generation” money transfer services, Paysend has been able to give their customers something they can’t get at a traditional bank or online payment service. This has made it possible for transfers and requests to be made quickly and with little effort. The service is easy to use because it can be used on both desktops and mobile apps.

Pockit bank - logo

Pockit

About:

  • Started in 2012
  • Founder: Virraj Jatania (CEO)
  • Partner institution: PayrNet Ltd

Money transfers and personal accounts

Features:

  • You can open an account online in 3 minutes
  • Builder of credit
  • Cash-back bonuses
  • Send 32 currencies to 55 countries

Pockit is a great all-arounder that makes banking easy for many people, especially those who have had trouble opening accounts with more traditional banks.

But Pockit may not be enough for some customers because it doesn’t offer loans and has fewer ways to save than other platforms. It’s worth looking at Pockit.

When you use your Pockit card at many popular stores and restaurants, like Pizza Express and Argos, you can get up to 10% cash back. This can make a big difference in your finances if you like to shop, and it can also make the bill for a big meal less painful.

Revolut bank - logo

Revolut

About:

  • Started in 2015
  • Founders: Nikolay Storonsky (CEO) and Vlad Yatsenko

Business accounts and personal accounts (spending, saving, junior, and crypto)

Features:

  • Budget and Numbers
  • Get paid on time
  • Trading in crypto
  • Savings Vaults
  • Up to 4.64 percent interest
  • Donations

Revolut is a “challenger bank” that changed the way banks work all over the world. It has grown to every part of the world and is finally making money.

With their innovative app, you can send money anywhere in the world, invest in crypto, stocks, and commodities (gold and silver), get travel insurance, exchange money without hidden fees, and so on.

Revolut has become a global player in the world of neobanking, and other challenger banks have started to copy some of the features it has made. Even though the company has some problems to work out, there are many reasons to switch to their nice app.

Revolut bank is one of the best online banks in the UK, definitely worth checking it out.

RoosterMoney bank - logo

RoosterMoney

About:

  • Started in 2015
  • Will Carmichael started it (CEO)
  • Accounts for juniors

Features:

  • Ages 3 and up
  • 1 month for free
  • £24.99 yearly
  • Chore management system
  • Prepaid Visa debit card for kids
  • Educational content & resources
  • Chart of stars and prizes
  • Flexible card controls for parents

RoosterMoney came out in 2016 and now works with more than 50 different currencies. There are three levels:

  • Tracker in the Cloud (free)
  • Rooster Plus (£14.99/y)
  • Rooster Card (£24.99/y)

Start with the free Virtual Tracker if you have a 3-year-old at home. It’s a chart with stars or rewards to help kids learn to do good things from a young age. You can keep track of kids’ tasks and behaviors by giving them stars, which they can then trade for rewards.

When you’re ready to keep track of chores, you can upgrade to Rooster Plus, which ties kids’ pocket money to chores to encourage them to save and earn. You can even add interest to their “Save” pot to give them something for the money they put away.

Your kids should get Rooster Money because it grows as they do.

Starling Bank - logo

Starling

About:

  • Founded: 2014
  • Founder: Anne Boden (CEO)

Accounts for personal and business use

Features:

  • Best Bank for the last four years.
  • Sign up online for free
  • No fees every month
  • Joint accounts and Euro accounts
  • Loans for people and for businesses
  • Overdrafts
  • Cheque deposits
  • AER rate of 0.05% on balances up to £85,000
  • An all-human support team based in the UK
  • Accounts for kids and teens

A digital challenger bank, Starling Bank is based in London, UK. Anne Boden, a tech entrepreneur from Wales, came up with the idea. She started the neobank in 2014 under the name Possible Financial Services.

It changed its name to Starling in January 2016, and that same year it got a banking license in the UK.

It won the Best British Bank award four years in a row at the British Bank Awards (2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021). With so much competition from both the old guard and the new challenger banks, the awards really speak for themselves.

Since their core banking services are still free, we can recommend them without any reservations.

Suits Me bank - logo

Suits Me

About:

  • Started in 2015
  • Founder: Matthew Sanders (CEO)
  • Contis Financial Services Ltd. is a partner company.
  • Personal Accounts

Features:

  • Simple to open
  • No address proof needed
  • Monthly costs of £4.97 or £9.97
  • Features for saving and budgeting
  • Cash-back bonuses

There are a lot of people in the UK who, for one reason or another, can’t open a bank account. They might have just moved to the country or have bad credit. Suits Me is focusing on this small group of customers.

If you can’t open an account with a traditional bank or a digital bank like Starling or Monzo, Suits Me bank is a good option. It has a basic account with fees we didn’t expect and think are unnecessary.

All Suits Me bank account holders get a current account, a contactless Visa debit card, a secure online banking option, and a free mobile banking app to help them manage their money.

Tandem bank - logo

Tandem

About:

  • Started in 2015
  • Matt Cooper, Michael Kent, and Ricky Knox were the founders.
  • CEO: Susie Aliker
  • Accounts for savings, loans, and mortgages

Features:

  • Simple to open
  • Autosave function
  • Green loans
  • Mortgage deposits up to £85,000 are safe.
  • Open banking platform

Tandem wasn’t started by just three people; it was started by 11,000 people. They got a license to be a bank in 2015, but they had to give it up when the UK store chain House of Fraser backed out of a plan to invest £35 million. In a market with so much competition, Tandem needs to step up its game and add more features to its app instead of taking features away. Its decision to stop offering credit cards did not go over well with customers and has left a bad taste in the mouths of many, as shown by reviews from users.

As of February 2020, the most recent information said that Tandem Bank had about 800 thousand customers.

Tide bank - logo

Tide

About:

  • Started in 2015
  • Founder: George Bevis
  • Dr. Oliver Prill is the CEO.
  • Business accounts and registration

Features:

  • Simple to open
  • lets you connect your app to your other accounts.
  • Spending categorization
  • Low costs
  • Within the app, you can make invoices.
  • Features that keep you safe
  • FCA registered
  • At the moment, you can’t send money across borders.

Tide is a digital company in the UK that helps small and medium-sized businesses with their finances. George Bevis began it in the year 2015.

More than 300,000 people in the UK have bought Tide so far. Its accounts are made for freelancers and small businesses that want to grow. Tide has three different account types, so every business can find what they need.

If you don’t already have a registered business, Tide will help you set one up for free and also give you a free business account.

With Tide, you can order up to 35 Tide Expense Cards for your team and keep track of who is spending what. With a free Mastercard, you can shop in the UK and other countries without paying any fees.

Wise bank - logo

Wise

About:

  • Started in 2011
  • Founders: Kristo Kaarmann (CEO) and Taavet Hinrikus (CEO)
  • Partner bank: Community Federal Savings Bank
  • Accounts for people and businesses, money transfers

Features:

  • Online account for free
  • Information about foreign banks
  • You can send money to more than 70 countries, and the fees are always low and clear.
  • Direct Debits in the US, the UK, and Europe
  • Use your card to buy things with local money.
  • Get your salary, pension, and other payments.
  • Pay the real rate of exchange
  • You can pay online safely and get instant updates.
  • You can use your card in more than 200 countries and get cash at 2.3 million ATMs.

Since its start in London in 2011, Wise has worked to make international money transfers cheaper and more clear. Wise has quickly become a top choice for both personal and business international bank transfers. Compared to high street banks and other online payment providers, Wise has very low fees, and when converting currencies, it uses the real exchange rate.

Wise became well-known for making it easy, cheap, and quick to send money around the world. It’s hard to believe that other platforms or sellers charge 5 to 13 times more for the same thing. It’s no wonder that people are leaving big banks in droves.
People and businesses can use a Wise account for more than just safe money transfers. It has a lot of other benefits as well.

Wise bank is one of the best online banks in the UK, definitely worth checking it out.

The Best online banks in the UK

Benefits of online banking in the UK

Online banks also go by the names mobile banks, neobanks, challenger banks, digital banks, and other names that are similar.

The apps that digital banks make are like a one-stop shop for your finances. They are meant to give you more information about all of your accounts and help you save, budget, and plan. They do this by giving customers updates on their spending in real time, regular spending reports, and by putting spending into categories like bills, food, rent, etc., so that customers can see where they could cut back or when they could save.

With the goal of making banking as easy as possible, many online banks in the UK also offer bill splitting, savings accounts, and instant PIN changes.

One of the best things about challenger banks for many UK customers is that many of them let you spend money abroad without fees and freeze and unfreeze your account instantly for better security. This makes it much easier to keep track of your money while traveling.

Online banks aren’t limited by old infrastructures that would take years to update like traditional banks are. This means that online banks are always adding new features to help customers keep track of their money.

Low fees to none

Digital banks also try to be much more open about how they do business than traditional banks. Many of the challenger banks offer free current accounts and more advanced options that cost a monthly fee.

Most of these banks are proud of the fact that they don’t have any hidden fees. This “fee-free” service is also available overseas, where many challenger banks offer free international transactions and free cash withdrawals to attract travelers.

Digital-only banks still make money, but they don’t take advantage of their customers by charging them too much.

Higher rates of interest

It is a known fact that big banks will give you terrible interest rates, if they give you any at all. How do you feel about 0.05%? Digital banks can offer higher interest rates on savings accounts because they don’t have to pay for things like storefronts and tellers.

Some of the time, you can even get interest on the money in your checking account.

    Simple to use

    Is going to the bank the worst thing that can happen? I thought it was as important as going to the dentist. Thanks to mobile banks, you can open an account without having to drive to the bank and pay for gas and parking.

    You can start banking as soon as you fill out the online form, upload your ID, and take a selfie.

    Convenient

    Not only is it easy to open a bank account online, but there are other things that are also helpful. You can apply for a mortgage and do just about everything else that has to do with your money from your couch. Start by opening your banking app and finding the menu.

    Most digital banks in the UK make it easy for new customers to sign up. All they have to do is download an app, enter some personal information, and prove who they are.

    Not only is the process much faster than at traditional banks, but it also makes their financial services more available to people who usually can’t use them.

    Budgeting and analytics

    Digital banks in the UK put a lot of effort into helping their customers keep track of their money. They do this with monthly reports, forecasts, alerts, budgeting goals, tools for saving money, and so on.

    Customers can stay on top of their finances by getting alerts about their spending in real time. At the same time, automated advice helps customers decide how much they can spend safely and how much they can save. Because of these features, many people have opened an account, either as their main bank account or as a second account.

      Cashback

      You no longer need a credit card because some banks that are only accessible by phone give cash back on everyday purchases. It was about time that you got something back! Now, you can even get cash back in the form of cryptocurrency.

        Drawbacks of digital banking

        Digital banking isn’t perfect, and most independent fintech companies were only started less than 10 years ago (some only a couple of years ago). So, there are still a few kinks to work out.

        Let’s look at some of the problems with online banks in the UK, though.

          Customer service

          This is likely the biggest problem that small banks have over big banks. You have to do all your troubleshooting online because there are no physical branches. This isn’t always the best solution, especially if you have a problem that needs to be fixed quickly and costs a lot of money.

          Even though all of the apps have a chat feature, you may have to wait a long time for someone to answer your questions, or you may only be able to talk to a chatbot. True, some big banks also do bad things.

            Fewer financial products

            Some online banks only offer a basic account with a few extra features. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Not everyone uses their bank account for saving, investing, mortgages, loans, and so on. Sometimes, simpler is better.

            Fewer options for depositing

            This comes down to the fact that there aren’t any real branches. If you have cash on you and want to put it in your bank account, you might run into trouble. Same thing with checks, since you can’t scan a check with your phone at any neobank.

              How safe is digital banking?

              When it comes to banking, security is very important, and some people may worry about how safe digital banks are. But digital banks are on the cutting edge of security and other innovations.

              Many people join a bank with the expectation that it will be approved by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and that the FSCS will protect deposits up to £85,000.

              This is true for many full-service digital banks like Monzo, Starling Bank, and Tandem Bank. However, you should check ahead of time because some banks have been approved by the FCA but have not yet received FSCS protection.

              When it comes to keeping your digital bank account safe, digital banks have shown that they are the ones who come up with the most high-tech ways to do so. Digital banks make it easy to sign up for their services within minutes through their apps. However, they also use strict ways to verify user identities, such as fingerprint scanning, facial recognition, and voice recognition, and they will continue to use the latest security technology in the future.

              When it comes to new ideas, traditional banks often follow the lead of challenger banks. This should give digital bank customers some peace of mind about their security.

              What features do online banks offer that traditional banks don’t?

              • Easy and quick to fill out online
              • Acceptance in minutes
              • No boring paperwork is needed.
              • Features of advanced analytics
              • No hidden fees
              • Foreign transactions and ATM withdrawals will cost less or not at all.
              • Accounts that pay interest, whether they are savings accounts or not,
              • Reports and predictions every month
              • Customer service inside the app
              • Bill splitting

              How to start using online banking

              How to start using online banking
              The best thing about banks that only work online is that most online accounts can be opened in 5–10 minutes or even less. Go to the site of your mobile bank and click or tap “Get Started.” You can also get the banking app yourself by going to Google Play or Apple’s App store.
              Most of the time, you’ll need a driver’s license or passport and proof that you live in the country to open a personal online bank account. Some mobile banks, on the other hand, don’t require you to live in the country.

                In conclusion – the best online banks in the UK

                In the UK, the number of challenger banks that only work online has grown over the past few years. These digital banks let you do banking through apps you can download on your phone or tablet. Unlike traditional banks, they don’t have physical branches.

                The services that online banks offer through their apps mean that they don’t need physical branches. Several online banks in the UK offer excellent online customer service and automated processes and updates that help you keep track of your money.

                Even though many people still like to go to physical bank branches, the benefits of online banks that help customers feel more in control of their finances are luring millions away from their traditional bank accounts. In fact, more than two-thirds of bank customers plan to use digital banking exclusively in the future.

                Most online banks in the UK offer a free standard current account option for current accounts. Some, on the other hand, offer more advanced plans for a small fee that come with extra benefits like special deals from partners. All current accounts have built-in budgeting tools, monthly reports, and tips to help customers learn more about their money.

                You can choose to get a good interest rate on one of your savings pots or spots, and many banks let you take money out without losing your interest.

                The round-up tool is another common feature that lets customers save their spare change from everyday purchases and earn interest on it. The main goals of online banking in the UK are customer growth and financial stability.

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