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Banking

High Street Banks

Sam Wilkinson

Overview | List

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Overview

Most major high street banks are household names. They generally offer both personal and business banking and can be bewilderingly difficult to navigate. However, their size offers many customers comfort claiming they are they too big to fail.

✔︎ Pros

well-known institutions, very unlikely to be here today and gone tomorrow

physical branches across the country (handy if you need to pay in cash or cheques)

✘ Cons

generally have been slow to adapt to new technology

often slow and cumbersome to deal with such large organisations

List

List

High Street Banks

Account Types

Pros

Cons

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Business banking

Online Business banking

Startup banking

Negatively reviewed online

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Business Internet Banking

Barclays.net

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Barclays

Background

Barclays Internet Banking is by far the most user friendly of the two options, and is ideal of making one off payments, checking account balances, downloading bank statements etc.

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Barclays.net⁠

is far less intuitive, and is widely regarded as being extremely frustrating to use. It's main purpose is for making bulk payments, as explained in more detail below.

Support

You will have access to an account manager. Telephone support is easy to get hold of but frustratingly there are a lot of forms to be filled out to get any changes in mandates payments limits etc

Online Platform

Not very intuitive. They even charge for a training session to use the platform which a testimony to how difficult the system it so use!

Via a secure token device

Set up

Notoriously difficult to set up as it involves the installation of bespoke software. Only works on a specific version of Firefox on Apple devices and Interest Explorer on Windows devices.

Known issues

Bulk payment files can only be imported for each bank account. If you have many bank accounts, you have to import a file for each of them

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Payment file - Barclays.net

Populating the payment file

Populate the

Barclays template file⁠

and download as .csv file

account numbers are formatted as 0000000

sort code are formatted as 000000

numbers do not have commas (ie, it should be 1234.00 not 1,234.00)

there are no extra rows and columns

header row should be excluded

a column populated "99" to be added as a final column to denote payment type

Importing the file to the banking platform

Log into

Barclays.net.⁠

From the Home Screen, Under 'Quick Links', 'Payments' Click > 'Import payment'

Select 'Format Name' as SAGE/SIF PEGASUS OPERA

Choose Payment Urgency and Type (Usually UK Faster/Next Day payment)

Enter a Reference and select Value Date as the date for the payments to be made

Click 'Import'

Confirm / Finalise

Go to Payments > Manage Payments > edit/repair/submit. The uploaded file will be there as draft

Review the total payment amount and date

Select the file and submit

Confirm / Sign and enter the pin code on the card reader when prompted

Final check

Go to Payments > View payments. The payment should be showing as Status ' Future Date Approved'

Coutts

Background

The Queen's bank and quite uncommon among small businesses. Nevertheless...

Payment file

Populate the template file

Template Coutts Payment File⁠

and download as a .csv format. More detailed information can be found here:

Ask Coutts - Payments - Payment Lists⁠

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Support

You will have access to an account manager. However, more often than not, they will defer you their telephone support who is easy to get hold on the phone, but not always helpful.

Online Platform

Simple to use, easy to set up

Via a secure token device

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Payment lists

Coutts offers a functionality called 'Payment Lists', which allows for multiple payees to be paid simultaneously; ideal for Payroll and weekly/monthly expenses

Detailed instruction on how to create and use payment lists can be found here:

Ask Coutts - How do I create a payment list? ⁠

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HSBC

Online Platform

Simple to use, easy to set up

Via a secure token

Set Up

Set up is relatively easy and can be done by the primary user of the account

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Payment authorisation

Every business has a daily payment limit as requested by the business' mandated signatories on the application form.

The Primary User is the admin of the account and can set up other users on the account.

To set up segregation of controls, the Secondary User to be set up with a daily payment limit and individual payment limit as zero, so that all payments that the Secondary User has initiated need to be approved ty the Secondary user.

Metro

Background

There are two main types;

Commercial Banking

Business Banking

Business banking offers a very basic banking platform, suitable for a one man band business where the directors expect to make payments themselves. Most businesses should opt for the commercial banking where approval workflows can be set up and bulk payments can be made.

Support

You will have access to an account manager. However, more often than not, they will defer you their telephone support who is easy to get hold on the phone, but not always helpful.

Online Platform

Simple to use, easy to set up

Via a secure token device

Set up

One of the easier high street bank to set up.

Known issues

If a payment has bounced back, there is no way of telling from the online platform which payment it relates to. This is tricky if you make bulk payments to many suppliers of the same amount on the same day.

There are no rows in this table

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Payment file

Populating the payment file

Populate the template file -

Template Metro Bank file⁠

and download as a .txt format

account numbers are formatted as 0000000

sort code are formatted as 000000 (you can add ' in front of the number to make to ensure it has the right format)

numbers do not have commas (ie, it should be 1234.00 not 1,234.00)

there are no extra rows and columns

Importing the file to the banking platform

Import the file into Metro Bank Bulk Payments as Metro Bank format. This may take awhile for the bank to process.

Follow the prompts to complete the payment as Faster Payments on the schedule date.

Confirming that payments have been processed

As a final check, navigate to the "Item Management" button at the top right and click on "Team Items". Scroll to the very bottom to see the bulk payments files that are now awaiting approval.

Natwest

Background

There are two main accounts:

Natwest Internet Banking

Barclays.net

Natwest Internet Banking is by far the most user friendly of the two options, and is ideal of making one off payments, checking account balances, downloading bank statements etc.

Bankline is far less intuitive, and is widely regarded as being extremely frustrating to use. It's main purpose is for making bulk and scheduling payments.

RBS

Santander

SVB

Background

Support

Telephone phone is helpful and very quick to get hold of

Online Platform

Simple to use, easy to set up

Via a username and password

Set up

Setting up a new user doesn't require KYC

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Amending privileges

See the

SVB support page⁠

Payment file

Populate the template file

Template SVB Payment File⁠

and download as a .csv format

Upload to SVB

Transferwise

Background

Support

Only online support and mostly helpful.

Online Platform

Simple to use, easy to set up

Via a username and password

Set up

Very quick and easy to set up. No need to visit a branch, as there isn't one

Pros

You can make payments to non UK bank accounts in the same payment file

Known issues

There is no approval process in place as only the admin user can make payment

There are no rows in this table

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Payment file

Populate the template file

Template Transferwise Payment File⁠

and download as a .csv format. There are different templates depending on whether you are making business payments or private payments.

Upload as a payment run in Transferwise

Transfer over the necessary funds

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