No one’s mentioned Handelsbanken as yet, so, any customers lurking here and if so, what are they like?
I’ve seen a couple of their branches and I toyed with the idea of popping in to make an appointment, but I don’t quite think I’d fit their customer profile.
Trustpilot don’t love them - seems like they mainly concentrate on business accounts - two complaints about the costs of current accounts are either £25 or £40 a month
I’m not quite sure where I formed this impression, but I think they do specialise in catering to small business entrepreneurs (where they will cover your business and personal banking) so that could be some of their appeal.
I mentioned them in passing the other day in another thread as being more like old school banking with decisions taken at a local level with more personal service, almost halfway towards real private banking. I have to stress, that isn’t from personal experience - more what I have read.
Personally I find it a bit odd that their offices (clearly not branches in the traditional sense) seem to often be located on faceless industrial estates or business parks out of town. I am also not interested in paying for a personal service or having an (intrusive) conversation with someone just to see if they would deign to consider me as a customer!
I have said before that I would have to be getting more back than what I were paying (insurances worth more than the fee, for example) if I am ever to be tempted into paying for a bank account. There are just too many other banks out there offering perfectly serviceable accounts for free (or even paying me to have them)!
TL;DR I don’t think they are for me, so I’ve not used them. They may appeal to certain specific customer demographics, however. Having experience of virtually all mainstream banks but not Handelsbanken, I would be interested to hear from anyone who has been a customer.
To be honest, the only two Handelsbanken branches I’ve ever actually seen, is one in Winchester which is on the main road in the city I believe, and the other I saw in Mansfield, which is iirc, on a industrial type retail park.
As I say, I’m not sure I’d fit their customer profile but I just wondered if there were actually any real life customers who could enlighten us all as to what they’re like.
Agreed!
(They must have relatively few customers, so tracking them down seems difficult)
We use them at work as one of our banks can’t really say that I am that impressed with them. Every time you send a payment over £10k you need to let them know or the payment gets held.
We’ve got a branch, I’ve never visited though or even looked at the website.
There’s a branch in Hitchin, next town along.
Not sure why I’d need a bank account that charges £25 pm minimum. What on earth do you get for £300pa?
I imagine it’s “personal service”, probably most valuable in the sense that lending is decided by an old-fashioned bank manager instead of a “computer says no” automated system.
For their entrepreneurial, mainly small business customer base this may be very valuable?
Handelsbanken are used at work for business as they are good for trust and deputyship accounts.
So this is something that exists still huh, will be something I use in the near future 