Re: Current Account Rate Change

  • jaffacake's Avatar
    Got a letter in the post about this today. I'm out. I was an early adopter of Tesco Bank, first for credit cards and then for Current Account at launch. I was the "poster child" for account switching and my family were published in the Daily Mail as a success story for the bank. https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...w-account.html Since then, it's all gone downhill. First you killed the great clubcard deals I got on my credit card. I switched to AMEX, they pay me 1% cashback on all transactions, 2% on travel (like train tickets and holiday flights) and 3% on eating out. Then you reduced the clubcard deal on the current account, there are old threads here that explain how happy I wasn't with this. You failed completely to deliver any integration with Google Pay which saw me open a peripheral account with Starling Bank just to be able to use that function. This is where things went steeply downhill. Starling showed me how a banking app should work. How easy it could be to manage my day to day transactions and separate pots of money to keep track of my budgets. They were also massively cheaper for foreign currency and charged no fees for overseas cash withdrawals. I slowly started doing more banking with Starling and shifting some of my savings over as their "spaces" function makes it easier to track my virtual pots of money. The Tesco Clubcard deals also got poorer value - not only was it harder to earn points, they were worth less when converted to vouchers. And now, four years on from switching to Tesco, you dump the interest rate to a third of its previous value. Many banks do better than this and on the full balance not just the first £3000. So it's now time to push the account switching button in Starling. To be fair, their interest rate is a little lower than yours but we're only talking £15 a year difference on £3000 - it's worth that just to not have to use your app any more. Additionally, they will also pay interest on the full balance so if I have £6000 with them (I usually have way more than that) then I'll earn the same interest or more each year anyway. I enjoyed my time with Tesco Bank and the pleasant Scottish staff on the phone. I've recommend you to numerous family & friends, but no more. The package is no longer competitive or appealing - the challenger bank appears to have given up.
  • 3 Replies

  • jaffacake's Avatar
    p.s. you closed my local branch too. I can no longer bank in my local Tesco store. If you don't have branches, I might as well use a true online bank.
  • KerryL's Avatar
    Former Your Community Expert
    Hi , I'm sorry to hear you're unhappy with the changes. We did make all of our customers aware when they took out the account that the interest rate was only guaranteed until the 1st of April 2019. We are an online bank which is why we've removed in-store banking from a lot of our stores. I'm sorry these changes mean we're not suitable for you, hopefully we'll be able to offer you something more favourable in future.
  • KeiganM's Avatar
    Your Community Expert
    If you would like to discuss this further, please call our Current Accounts team on 0345 835 3353 (24/7) and a member of our team will be able to discuss this further.