Remember to collect £175 for your troubles. 
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Certainly going to give it a go. I have an expendable Barclays account.
It does seem odd that opening a new HSBC account is such a laborious and old fashioned process by comparison considering they’re presumably basically the same app underneath. FD was open with the card in my Apple wallet in less than 5 minutes.
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Yup, FD have been great at opening accounts in comparison to HSBC for me as well. I much prefer FD, they’re just a little more basic in terms of applying for overdrafts, savings account etc, all over the phone. Prefer FD app though, as well as notifications (on iOS at least).
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You can open savings accounts online now.
Overdrafts you still have to phone, or maybe you can do that via the chat function now?
It is minimalist but clear and the app isn’t crowded with options and other information.
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It’s still the nicest banking app I’ve ever used, super simple with just enough detail. I nearly moved back across from Lloyds earlier today, decided to give them a little longer before I do this.
If FD had a slightly better offering or CC option I don’t think it’d be a difficult choice.
Yesterday I was able to set up a direct debit over live chat instead of having to phone, and it showed up in Chase that night. I was quite impressed.
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Available balance on the Home Screen would sway me. Along with opening another fd account for bills.
LHV looks really promising as the app is very what I want.
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You can open a second account, you just need to ask them
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Always curious to know what special sauce is in an FD regular saver account that means it takes so long to open? Applied for one last Sat, finally open on Weds, after a load of excuse staller text messages saying they’re really busy etc. Can’t be some intern locked in a basement somewhere knee deep in Excel doing manual account creations, surely?!
It is an odd one, given that you also can’t change the amount taken each month by standing order once it’s set up.
You can change the amount, but you have to ask them to change it for you, you can’t do it yourself.
You can’t change the date at all.
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I always found this to be very strange, none of the other accounts have that limitation. I assume it’s either a legacy HSBC product such as the credit card and therefore requires manual effort or just plain legacy.
The FD credit card is 100% legacy. FD even issue a letter after cancelling stating thank you for returning the card, and then another to say it’s cancelled please destroy it.
True legacy systems at play.
I think the returning of cards was 90s banking when cards were property of the bank!
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NatWest is quite legacy for some operations, you can open a savings account and it will take up to 4 days before it’s open and available to use.
I accept FD / HSBC is legacy as well but I do like the simplicity around FD. I prefer the way it shows transactions compared with HSBC.
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I used to have this card. The design was certainly legacy but I quite liked it. I suspect it’s down to what you want it for. For me, it gets used only for large planned purchases and paid off straight away. In that case the card worked just fine.
Notifications would’ve been nice for it, and maybe a little better visibility of what’s on the card.
If this card modernised slightly and they offered better investment options I might be tempted back to FD. I still find it to be a super nice looking app and covers most bases.
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When I took out my mortgage with fd, I was surprised that it had to be paid by Standing Order. There wasn’t an option to pay by Direct Debit. Possibly another legacy product!
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Yeah it does what it says on the tin.
I ditched FD to Barclays - but that’s because I can collect Avios on their barclaycard and again via Avios Rewards (premier account only)
The FD app and call centre experience though are think the best legacy bank out there.
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That other one also tells you it will be a criminal offence if you try to use it and they will take criminal proceedings if you did.
Yes you can. The last 2 years I’ve opened a regular saver I’ve cancelled my standing order that was set up when I opened the account, and then set up a new one manually for the date I want, and never had any issue.
If that works, fine, but it is against the rules, which state “Your standing order payment date will need to remain the same once set up.”
Also, discussion over on MSE says that if you change the standing order date, you don’t get the 7% Regular Saver interest rate until the original standing order date, rather than from the date you’ve set yourself.