Ok, first off, I can’t compare Lloyds to Monzo at all because I’m not a Monzo customer, I can only relate my experience of Lloyds as both a former personal and joint account holder.
I have nothing bad at all to say about Lloyds. My Wife and I ran a perfectly good joint current account with them for many years. Initially, we used and abused the Club Lloyds account for the interest it paid a few years ago, we regularly earned around £18 a month in current account interest. Sadly, that all dropped off and we began to curtail our use of the account once we got involved with Starling and started utilising Nationwide for our joint account.
Customer service: Overall, no real issues. The only issue I had, was a few years ago when I was a victim of identity fraud. Lloyds fraud department were not at all helpful. They at the time admitted that they had seen suspicious activity on my account before I did, but they failed inform me in time. We go it sorted in the end, but it left a bad taste if I’m honest.
Notifications: didn’t really have much in the way of notifications as we had curtailed the use of our account significantly after they’d introduced them.
Yes, you can see your personal account, joint account and credit card balances in app.
mobile push notifications: do you get instant notifications for transactions / declines as per Monzo? I get sms notifications if a transaction is declined and fairly real time push notifications about card spend. They also do upcoming direct debit notifications as well as a summary of card spend at the end of every week
joint account integration: can you see your personal and joint accounts in the app. Is it as elegant as Monzo? Yes
support: is it responsive on the phone / online chat / in-branch? Never had an issue contacting them
international transfers - can you get an IBAN/SWIFT number for your account? Yes, although they are quite expensive so I used Wise (was using Starling but they are just as expensive as Lloyds IMO now
they’re not as “woke” and politically divisive as Monzo and won’t have the online community management issues that soured my Monzo experience This is a great thing IMO
I honestly can’t rate Lloyds high enough, if they would introduce Fee Free foreign transactions and euro account that doesn’t require you to earn over £50K per year I wouldn’t use any other bank
I had a nightmare week with the whole fraud thing, but it all worked out in the end. I had to carry out a lot of my own investigations but the result was very little actual damage to my credit history. I believe my debit card had been skimmed and it all snowballed from there.
I use Lloyds with a single and joint account and now see very little difference in the features of the Lloyds app and the Fintech banks I use.
I don’t think sending money via a URL is possible but couldn’t swear to it as it is not something I use. It does connect to other bank providers using open banking. The notifications are in app and you can change which to receive in settings. It has the ‘my voice is my password’ feature as well when dealing with customer service which I find convenient. No major problems so far for me so not much to say about customer service itself…the small things I’ve needed have been sorted out OK but sometimes that’s luck of the draw. Like most traditional banks, adding a card to Google Pay requires a phone call from within Google pay app so that’s not as slick as say Monzo/Starling/dozens which is a shame but it’s usually a one off so not too big a problem
Just to add that Halifax is basically identical to Lloyds with just a different ‘skin’ as it were.
I would assume that’s because they are part of the Lloyds Bank group.
The MBNA app is also just a reskinned version of Lloyds Core app although they do tend to roll out new features here 1st and prior to selling it TSB was also just a reskinned version of Lloyds banking
Out of curiosity does anyone know if Halifax and Bank of Scotland online banking is also just reskinned from Lloyds
I’m really impressed with the app. It’s business-like (ie. not festooned with kiddies toys for features). In addition, the desktop version is comprehensive (and needed for the odd esoteric task).
On top of that, I’ve found telephone customer service to be exemplary. I’m well satisfied.
Yes, it is - the interface is the same but in different colours. Similar to how the apps for all three are the same. Also, due to the historical legal structure of both Bank of Scotland and Halifax being part of the HBOS subsidiary of Lloyds, if you have accounts with both they show in each other’s apps and online banking automatically which is sometimes useful.
As you say, MBNA is also the same (although I don’t have personal experience of them, as I don’t hold one of their cards). Birmingham Midshires is another brand of the group and seems to use a different, more dated, online interface but the basic login process, etc, is the same.
There is no “send money via link” feature, but it may be possible to use something like PayPal or Paym for this instead?
Sorry to hear about this, but it does sound like another point in favour of using credit cards for all everyday spending. That way, you hopefully get any fraudulent transactions sorted before you have to pay off the statement, and therefore don’t lose out. Also, I really don’t like to expose my sort code and account number unnecessarily - and most debit cards still have these details printed on them.
I’m not a customer although I’ve considered it a number of times. However, a couple of people on FTT mentioned that the iOS push notifications are “silent” - you don’t get an audible alert along with the notification.
I don’t think it’s much of a notification if you have to be looking at your iPhone or watch to see it in good time.
What about showing pending incoming BACS payments? It’s completely inconsequential I know, but I do enjoy the reassurance my salary is coming in the day before payday.
I agree with most of the other comments about Lloyds. I initially only joined them for a switching bonus, but was so impressed that I’ve made it one of my two main banks, -Barclays is the other one.
Lloyds has the most straightforward app of any that I’ve used.
Save the Change/round ups is a bit confusing at first (if you use that feature) because they don’t take the round-up amount straightaway. Instead, they add all the roundups together and take the total overnight, but you’re only talking about small amounts, so you get used to it.
I don’t know what customer service is like because I’ve never had to contact them. Online banking isn’t as simple to use as their app, but I’ve found that to be the case with every bank.
Speaking of Switching Bonus… when I upgraded my account from a Classic account to Club Lloyds they asked me if I wanted to switch an account. I decided to CASS an unused Metro Bank account and by doing so I apparently qualified for a switching bonus even though I had been with them for a very long time
It’s bad enough that in 2021, banks are still chucking out cards with embossed numbers on them. I haven’t had any of my cards rolled with a manual machine for well over 2 decades either at home or abroad.
I hear you Johnny, trouble is, you’ll always hear of someone who just happened to have their credit or debit card ‘rolled’ just last week because ‘the system went down’ and the shop assistant stood there fumbling with a piece of kit that was invented 40 years before they were born and they don’t know how to use the carbon paper and haven’t got the strength to roll the machine over the card blah blah blah
Exactly, but that’s actually just as much of a reason to switch to simply writing the numbers in on the slip.
The carbon imprint no longer adds anything from an anti-fraud perspective, often isn’t workable; as you say it is actually quite awkward to do and requires a certain technique which isn’t widely known anyway.
For me, the push notifications for card transactions aren’t as ‘instant’ as Monzo, Starling or even NatWest. I did a notification speed comparison for all of the accounts I own that I posted on FTT, and from memory I think my result for Lloyds was around 20 seconds. Regarding the notifications for transfers in and out, sometimes they take a number of seconds, but sometimes they take literally hours - I’m not sure why this is and whether it’s something they’re working on optimising.
Customer support through the app is via a messaging service, but in the format of a chat (so replies can take hours), but I must admit the service provided by the advisers (when they eventually get through) has always been, in my experience, absolutely flawless. I’ve never used their telephone support, but it has a very good reputation. If you call using the button inside the app, you bypass security, which is handy should you ever need to speak to someone. I do wish they had live webchat, though - I’ve found this to be super convenient with HSBC and NatWest.
Lloyds online banking interface is one of the cleanest I’ve seen - much better than NatWest’s, for example.
The app has a £1000 cheque imaging deposit limit; much more generous than the £500 most others offer. The app also shows locations for card transactions, which is nice and a bit finch-y (although I’m aware Barclays does this, too).
The Lloyds Classic account comes with a £500 daily ATM withdrawal limit - the most generous I’m aware of with any standard level (i.e. not HSBC Advance etc) account.
I think, from memory, that you can set your Barclays limit from the in-app controls to as high as £500 for standard customers, although the default is lower.
Premier customers at Barclays can have a limit of up to £1000.
I remember Fidor Bank (another failed German venture into the U.K. market) allowed you to set the limit up to £2,000 and I think N26 may have allowed a similarly high limit. Probably because of the high propensity for cash use in the German market. I can’t think of anyone offering beyond £500 on standard accounts now, you are quite right.
I think First Direct may match it; like Barclays they allow you to set your own personal limit via their app if you have one of their new Mastercards. You may consider First Direct to be more HSBC Advance level, though.
