Pressure to change banks

We had no choice but to change banks. We had been with Lloyds for over 40 years but they sold off all their Scottish branches so we were forced to go elsewhere. We moved to the Bank of Scotland and it was all very simple, even though we have quite complicated arrangements.

I get fed up with this constant 'choice', but at the same time I am conscious that it does save me a lot of money.

We need specialist insurance for our house because it is listed. We were with a broker for nearly 20 years who moved us between specialist companies to get us the best rate, but we thought it was getting expensive so hunted around ourselves and saved our selves several hundreds of £s, by going to an organisation that didn't work through brokers.

We have changed energy supplier several times and each time it has been a hassle, now we look at the comparison sites, and as long as the company we are currently with is competitive, we stick with it but each year, re-choose the cheapest tariff for us so that we do not get moved onto the Standard variable rate.

As far as I can see there is very little reason to change banks unless you get bad service or there is other pressing need.

There is supposed to be a guarantee that the switch goes through in a week but the banks will delay it if they can find any reason. I switched and the bank I was leaving delayed it because they said I hadn't included one old account - which had been closed several years before (they claimed it was still active). It took another 3 weeks before the switch was finalised.

Thank you for your replies, I'm sticking with my bank because of what they offer me now. Now my house insurance has become due, the mail from the opposition are dropping into my letter box! Arrgh!

I've had the same PIN number with every bank I've been with. The only internet banking I didn't like was HSBC.

Even if you do not change your power supplier, make sure that you are on their cheapest tarriff for you and not on the standard variable rate. Just ring them up and ask. They are legally bound to tell you whether you are on the best tarriff for you that they offer.

Power suppliers are a pain but I found changing bank quite easy and I didn't need to change any passwords/pinwords because you choose your own passwords/pin numbers and can recycle old ones ifyoubwant to.

I'm with Anya. The process isn't hard and you can make a lot of money on introductory offers.

Changed banks once. The process was easy enough, other than loads of questions to answer, and there have been financial benefits. The down side is I just hate their on line banking system. After two years I still struggle with it. I may be changing back to the original just to reduce the stress. .

CBA basically

I switched banks last yea after being with the same back since 1965.

No hassle at all. Everything was done for me and within the week.

I switched because I got £100 for changing, and the new bank gives me 5% on contactless purchases, 5% on regular savings and 1% on credit card purchases. Plus interest on my current account. Much of this is for 1 year only and after that I'll search out a new bank with great introductory offers and change again. I'll probably be £300 better off by the end of that first year.

Better the devil you know IMO.

I suspect changing banks would be much more complicated with more bits that could go wrong, than switching power suppliers, which we have done fairly successfully several times.

Ginny I feel exactly the same the supposedly simple change over seems daunting to me and will it be worth it, as soon as I change someone else will offer something better I get muddled enough remember what's going on with all my providers without adding new stresses I have just accepted that I ll miss all these wonderful savings