First Direct chat

Nope just that month. Then the next month it returns to 2.6% as long you don’t sup into it again. Unlike the 7% regular saver the interest is paid monthly too. Which I always find motivating to keep on saving personally :sweat_smile:

You have to ring them up to set up the savings accounts though. Which didn’t take long and the CS rep that helped me was at pains to make sure I knew what the situations with each of the accounts was.

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Has it really been that long?

Away from notifications (which would be nice, but not essential) I’d really like them to do just two things.

Custom pay-periods
Transactions to show in insights even while pending

Honestly those two things and it does all I need it to.

All their savings accounts are shown on their website, but only the Regular Saver and the Cash ISA are shown in the app.

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I’d say the feature I want the most is rounds ups. Most places do them now and I find they’re a nice little booster to saving. I was kinda surprised to see that FD didn’t do that. Feels like a fairly ubiquitous feature nowadays…

You have to call to open the bonus saver one over the phone, which is a transfer to another team.

Their app needs some upgrades IE remove pending transactions, have available balance on home page and get notifications into play alongside full product availability about to be done through app without human intervention.

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Probably longer. Certainly as long as the age of Monzo who must have been in existence for at least 5 years.

Seven years. I opened my Mondo account in 2016.

Ditto

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I bet TSB will enable notifications earlier :slight_smile:

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FD wouldn’t hire me.
Also they lack notifications, co op bank will be quicker at showing pending transactions

Well despite missing their inital date (how very FD) they’ve finally moved fDesign across to the same tool that HSBC’s customer studio uses.

Can’t log back in (yet) but I look forward to hearing about how transaction notifications are coming soon /sarcastictone

This and the latest App Store update (‘big changes we’ve got coming’) make me think that either FD might finally wake up and become the challenger testbed for HSBC (unlikely but who knows) or it’s just making someone from marketing feel good about themselves.

The whole App Store screenshots are really focusing down on the insights, app and how modern they are becoming.

Weird

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I did wonder why I couldn’t pay my CC this morning and now can’t even log in, I guess this explains it!

This shouldn’t have any impact on banking operations, that is possibly a seperate issue?

Dunno, it said something along the lines of the receiving bank can’t accept payments at this time. I was paying from FD current account to my FD Gold CC. :sweat_smile:

I just tried again, logged in and paid straight away.

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I’ll be mindful what I share here, but the first survey asks about how comfortable people are with:

Investments
Buying things on interest free credit
Going to branches (which is an odd one since they don’t have any!)

Clearly someone finally realised that Chase and Flex were things :eyes:

I suspect this will end the same way HSBCs customer studio has done, a black hole of commentary from customers that may or may not be used to direct future app feedback.

But hey, you’ve got to be in it to win it!

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Well let’s hope FD find their “challenger” roots again and up their game. They have a lot going for them imo. But innovative isn’t what I would call them. Back before Monzo perhaps.

I’ll have to login and see what’s the haps with FDesign. Signed up just before they started the move to the new platform.

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I think because they still sell themselves as a telephone based bank and that’s where their
Major service and older clients use I think they’ll never change that USP.

The guy who was brought in to help that had tons of ideas was it 2 years ago? Then he left to go somewhere else and it all stopped. He was talking about lowering the customer profile (not as wealthy) and competing with Monzo/Starling

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He went to Monument Bank, which isn’t the tube station.

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Not as wealthy eh? that explains why they accepted my application then.

I think they could up their tech game and still retain the telephone banking USP. Even for some of us from the younger generation its nice to sometimes speak to a person to resolve an issue with a service.

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I have to admit it was a little painful hanging on for so long to open up the FD bonus saver this evening, as there were queues in that department, and you couldn’t apply online - you had to phone. Which, for 2023 was a quaint experience, and the poor lady having to read war and peace to me over the phone.

I’ve banked with them for the best part of 10 years and it all went fairly swimmingly until the recent Mastercard debacle, the HSBC integration was very useful but their definition of ‘temporary’ interruption is somewhat stretched, given they started issuing Mastercards in 2021.

I can’t fault the person service though, they’ve all been nice as pie and helpful on the phone, messages etc.

I coudn’t really care less for notifications, categorisation on apps - I’d just like for them to fix what they broke really when they went down the Mastercard road.