What's up you guys, sasha here now recently i've talked a huge amount about uk challenger banks about various fintechs, but what i haven't done is i haven't covered the whole spectrum of the different kinds of uk bank accounts that you can have to try to tell you, Which one is actually the best out of the whole lot? So that's exactly what i'm going to do today. There are dozens of options available in uk 50 banks of building societies are part of the uk. Current account switching scheme ranging from the likes of big banks and companies that you do know like lloyd's, barclays and hsbc through to ones you probably haven't ever heard of like reliance bank and acorn, and there are lots of other smaller options. On top of that as well now some bank accounts are free, others will charge you a monthly fee.

Some will give you loads of additional perks, insurances and loads of other stuff, and others are just super basic and just give you the bare bones, but which one comes on top when it comes to trying to analyze the overall package and how good these products are. Actually for the consumer in this video, i will tell you the five best bank accounts in the uk for 2021.. Now this is all strictly based on my opinion. I am not paid or compensated in any way whatsoever by any of the banks that i'm going to be talking about.

I am a very analytical kind of guy. I love numbers, i love understanding data and i love basing some of my opinions on data as well, but having said that, i'm also really keen on understanding what their customer experience is like. How good are these banks at solving genuine customer concerns and issues and addressing their needs and wants and which banks actually really seem to care and really seem to provide something that goes above and beyond just the bare minimum? This means that having a great app, not hiding fees in the depths of the small print or deep in the terms and conditions and generally caring about the customer experience are all going to be key in deciding who ends up being in the top five. Now you may know one or two banks that are likely to end up somewhere close to the top of that pile if you've watched my videos before.

But you may be surprised to find that some of them, you may not have considered - and i have a suspicion that the vast majority of people watching will have never heard of one of them. So without further ado, let's just dive right in at number. Five. In the list is first direct now the truth is there isn't all that much to differentiate the different high street banks in terms of their feature sets and in terms of the various perks and benefits they give all the financial benefits that you used to be able To get sometimes just for switching over to a bank account have pretty much all disappeared in 2020 and in terms of the features in terms of the things you can do with apps everyone's kind of doing pretty much the same thing.

So why is first direct in at number five? Well, there are a few features where first direct genuinely is still above, where the rest of the competition is first of all is the customer service. This is probably their strongest point and has been for some time. It has deteriorated recently now i am a user affairs director, as i am of way way too many credit cards and bank accounts just so that i can go make these videos and their customer service certainly has gone downhill over the last year or two. It used to be that you would always have a human being pick up the phone after three rings and in most cases several years ago, that same human being would actually go and help you with almost every query that you would have today.

The situation is different. Suddenly you have to wait whenever you call, and it is nowhere near as fast. It sometimes will take quite a long time for them to answer, and then the person answering is probably not going to be the person helping you and you'll then get shoved into another queue. To wait for somebody who actually can having said that their customer service is still streets ahead of almost every other challenger bank and high street bank and any other bank in terms of, even though it does take some time.

It is still way faster than pretty much any other option that i have used tried out and tested. So on that they still get the credit, even though it maybe isn't quite as good as it was some of the benefits of the fact that you can dip into your overdraft for up to 250 pounds without having to pay anything which is really great. That's what overdrafts really are for for people accidentally just going below that zero mark, for whatever reason they accidentally did it? They maybe bought something and they didn't expect it to take them into their overdraft. So i really like that feature because it isn't offered by anybody else now.

It is really important to be careful, because once you go beyond the 250 pound mark, it does cost the same 399 that pretty much every other bank charges as well. So it isn't a good idea to go right to the line of the 250 in case you go over and begin paying that amount of money, but i really like that safety net. The second feature that i really like is the fact that you can go and deposit things like cash and checks at hsbc branches, of which there are very many, but not only that. You can also use the post office network and versus some of the challenger banks and what they're doing with those services that is actually a pretty good feature as first direct is a larger bank and some of the newer entrants to the market.

They offer you some additional benefits that those guys do not like. For example, you can go and get a regular savings account which pays you. One percent on your savings, which isn't by any means groundbreaking in terms of investing options, but it is really good compared to other savings accounts that are available on the open market and far better than the stuff that some of the other challenger banks are offering. By trying to mimic this service, so so that's nice as well.

Now the wrap, an online account has come on leaps and bounds. It still suffers from being part of the overall larger hsbc platform and, as a result, some things are not as intuitive or as simple as they could be, but they've definitely improved they've done away with having to use those little mini, calculatory gadgets to go and log. In and do things you can now do all those things considerably more simply, although not everything but anyway, i'm not gon na get into the depths of that and they've also improved some of the features like, for example, you can go and deposit a check by just Taking a picture of it with first direct one of the very few banks that offers this option, which is incredibly useful in this day and age, and even some of the leading challenger banks that i'm going to get to in just a second. Not all of them offer that feature themselves, so there are some really good things about them, but first direct is the obvious option you probably suspected there will be somewhere in this list, given their reputation and given how good they are customer service and stuff like that.

So, let's move on to an option that is slightly less obvious. I'm going to talk about tridos if you, for whatever reason have heard of them, have used them, give yourself a pat on the back, because most people will have no idea. What i'm talking about and the worst thing is they don't even have any of the features that you'd expect a bank in the top five to have looking at their features. You can't pay cash into their account.

You can only send cheques by mail, which takes quite a long time you get charged two and a half percent for all foreign spend with no minimum free amounts. You have to use this weird digipass tool that i have over here in order to go and access various banking features. The online banking app is really dated. It looks at least a decade out of place, and you might be surprised to find that for this massive lack of features, you have to pay a three pounds per month, monthly fee, so why the heck have, i included it in my top five well.

This bank was originally founded in the netherlands, and it recently made its way over to the uk and the entire ethos, the entire point of this bank. The entire reason for existing is just to improve the world. We live in to help people who are not as advantaged as some other people and just to make lives of everyone better, and that is an incredible and incredible way to run a bank, and it is certainly something that i haven't heard or seen from anywhere else. So i was really surprised when i came across them and i was really keen to find out more.

They invest in projects from culture to environments to various social causes, and they only lend money out to needs and wants of people all over the world. In these types of things, so they lent to charities they lent to various startups, trying to improve local wellbeing, trying to drill wells for water, trying to do all kinds of things like that. They do not lend to any kind of regular enterprises. They do not go and take money held in deposits and lend it out to make a massive profit, because big corporations are interested in borrowing money from them.

They invest in things like renewable energy, organic farming, funding, various cultural projects, various educational charities, all kinds of things like that in dozens and dozens of countries all over the world at a time when no current account in the uk really offers anything that is in terms Of the monetary value particularly exciting at the time, when no account really goes and actually does anything much and the best you can hope for is maybe a savings rate on the money held in your account, which might give you an extra five pounds a year versus Some other account some people might find that paying the three pounds a month fee for using their debit card instead of just some other generic bank account is worth it. So if that sounds like an interesting thing for you make sure you go and check them out for yourself to see what they're all about third on my list is the nationwide flex direct account. This one is incredibly popular, but the question is: does it matter that nationwide is not a bank they're, the only company on my list? That is not a bank? They are, in fact a building society. Well, the short answer is no, and the long answer is still no.

A building society has some restrictions on the way they can go and raise funding from wholesale markets and some other things, but in practice for people holding a current account with them. It means absolutely nothing for the typical user. It will feel pretty much exactly the same as any other bank account. In fact, it will feel a little bit better now, which and money saving expert both ranked this account really highly and sometimes say that this might be the best chrono account you can have in the country.

They are actually in at number three in the recent data on the number of people who are switching from other banks to them net in terms of people leaving and people coming in, and there are some really good reasons why this account does have some unique perks And some advantages that are better than any other current account in the uk as i'm recording this, but these perks are only available for 12 months and you can only apply for this account once ever so at the end of the 12 months. If you want to continue benefiting from these, you'll have to go and pick a different account and go and use that instead, now the main perk that they're, offering that a lot of people really really liking, is the two percent interest rate that they're paying on balances Of up to 1 500 pounds now this is a lot less than they were paying themselves only a few months ago, but it's still the best offer in the uk at the moment and if you do carry a balance in your current account. That is worth about. 30 pounds a year, if you max it out, that's pretty nice.

The difficulty here is that at the end of the 12 month period, that rate drops from 2 to just 0.25. So, in the same 1500, pounds you're gon na get something like three pounds: 75 worth of interest in the whole year. They'll probably buy you a coffee in starbucks, but you will have to dig out some change for the croissant. Now there is one catch.

However, in order to get the two percent interest rate, you do have to deposit 1 000 pounds a month into that current account. Without that you won't get paid now you can go and pay your salary into it or you can go and move it manually from another account that you do move your salary into it's up to you. But you need to be aware that you won't get the interest unless you put money into it, sort of making it look like it's. Your primary bank account the other benefit that they give is you can go and get yourself an overdraft alongside the current account, which will be free for a period of 12 months with the amount determined by your credit profile, and that's really great, because it means that Over 12 months, if you go and dip into your overdraft or use it, you won't have to pay as long as you're within your limit.

However, after the 12-month period that offer will be taken away and you'll have to go and pay the same 39.9 so make sure you don't go abuser make sure you don't go and sit in your overdraft until the point when you have to begin paying interest. But it's still good at the features there now two things that i wanted to make a point on nationwide, one the tech is still somewhat not quite as good as maybe some of the leading banks that i'm going to come to in just a second. The app is okay, it will do all the basics that you need, but it's just nowhere near as intuitive clear or easy to use and doesn't have the same features as the leading banks that we're going to come to and you still have to use one of Those card reader devices in order to be able to use some of the features, so it really gets let down a bit by that, and the second thing is, although there are two perks that they offer so the interest on your money and the overdraft facility that Are both leading in their own way? You can only really use one of those perks at any one time, so you can't benefit from both because either you're going to have to have money in your account earning you interest or you're, going to be sitting in that overdraft. Making use of the fact that you don't have to pay any fees so for pretty much everybody who'll be using this.

You can only access one of those really great features. So the fact that there's two isn't really that important. The top two banks are, in my opinion, streets ahead of the rest, including the three that i've just gone through. They compete on a different playing field in terms of the features and the ways that the apps work and the various benefits they give to the user.

But the really interesting thing is they don't even compete on the same things? They don't offer you amazing overdrafts that are free. They don't offer you any kind of interest on money held in your account. Well. Well, one of them does, but it basically amounts to nothing.

So why are these guys in the top two? Let me give you a really clear explanation and number two. My list is you guessed it monso. They probably have the best app and the best user interface out of any bank in the uk. It is incredibly pleasing to the eye.

It is very easy to use. The colors are great, some people prefer styling and i get a lot of comments, including on a video i recently did where i did a review of monster that some people prefer styling and i get it. I personally prefer styling, but i can see that on balance, if you genuinely comparing like for like and the ease of use, i still would have to give monzo credit for being slightly better in that respect. Their 5 million customers love some of the unique features that monzo offers, such as the various budgeting tools.

The pots where you can automatically move money, make payments from and set a direct debits from and a whole load of other features like knowing how much money you have left to spend for that month. Being able to use your card for free abroad and a whole lot more, in fact, some of the features that are only now being implemented by some of the banks were originally pioneered by monzo features such as freezing and unfreezing your card through the app by just Clicking something and being able to go and split your bills with your friends when you're going out or for whatever other reasons, monster also do offer the plus account and the premium account both paid options where there's a bunch of additional perks. I am not a big fan of either and i don't think the perks are actually worth the amount of money they cost. But if you're interested in that, i will link some specific reviews of those products below, and i recently did a big review of monzo.

Where i go through. Every single little detail make sure you go and check it out in the description below for all the details, which brings us nicely to number one and at number one. You probably won't be very surprised to find. I have styling bank now sterling do some things, probably not as well as some of the other entrants in my list.

For example, they only pay 0.95 interest on balances held in your account, which means for the same 1500 pounds that you get 30 pounds per year from your nationwide account you're only going to get 75p. If you had that money in styling, but there are massively good other reasons why i think styling is far better and deserves to be in that number one slot. Now, i'm not gon na go into the depths of everything you need to know about styling, i'm gon na film, a special video where i do a review for 2021 and link in the description below when that comes out, so make sure you look out for that And if you do want to catch that, video make sure you subscribe to this channel if you haven't done so already, but anyway, styling are in the business of solving real customer problems. They address every single little detail.

If you do something not very frequently once or twice a year, or maybe only when you go on a holiday or something else, if that thing could be done better, if your experience of using that particular feature can be done, better styling will usually make it better And that is different to even monzo who's sitting at number two. You can go and deposit cash. If you happen to come across a large amount of cash, you can't do that with monzo. You can go and deposit cheques by taking photos of them and even the postal process is faster than what manzo are offering.

You can go and travel abroad and use your card completely for free. There are no limits. There is no cash fees, withdrawal fees, there's nothing like that. They have thought of pretty much everything where somebody would say hey.

I wish my bank would do this better and they went and made it better, they're also beginning to add new features which are taking them. Even further away from everyone else, they are beginning to offer you multiple accounts. You can go and open additional accounts. Sure there is a small monthly cost for doing so.

But it's a feature that the other banks simply don't have. You can go and open an account in euros if you want to be able to use euros or you live abroad or your family lives abroad. And you want that flexibility of moving money. You can go and send money abroad through the styling app at really quite competitive rates.

I've done a video where i compare styling to all the other key options and they're actually not bad. At all sure. There are things that styling definitely can improve on their budgeting and money management tools are nowhere near as good as what monso has to offer and they really need to go and work on them to make them better. But i feel that if they go and focus on those elements of the wrap on the elements which allow people to understand better, how their money flows and to understand better how much money they have left and to just make the daily management of their cash flow Easier, i feel they'll go so far ahead.

It will be really difficult for their competition to catch them. I really like what they're doing i am personally using styling now, as my main bank account for exactly the reasons that i've just outlined to you. So i am literally doing exactly what i preach. I i'm a big fan and that's why they have ended up being a number one in this top five.

If you guys disagree, make sure you leave a comment below i'd, be really interested to hear your thoughts, but anyway, thank you so much for watching hey. I really appreciate anyone who manages to get this far in a video. Thank you. So much and i'll see you guys later.