Most banks and building societies give you the impression that you are taking up their valuable time looking after (and making money on) your hard earned cash. Are there any out there that make you feel otherwise?
I’ve found one: Norwich & Peterborough (well my local branch anyway – perhaps others can share their experiences of theirs). What a pleasant change from the big boys! Whenever I’ve been in the branch, there are two advisers on hand to help with anything I need (especially form filling, which I hate), and not much of a queue at the counter.
I can’t say I know a lot about banking and savings, but at N & P they don’t patronise you: they just tell you in simple terms about APRs, AERs and all that other gobbledegook.
The other thing I like is that when you phone them, the average time to get through seems to be about 1 minute, unlike others I could mention, where mostly I have given up in frustration after waiting 20 minutes…
P.S. – they are a ‘mutual’, which means that they don’t have shareholders they have to please, and as I understand it, the credit crunch hasn’t affected them, as they don’t do all that lending and borrowing stuff with other banks.
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