Bank of Scotland

D'Peoples Voice

What do people think?

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0110/bos.html
http://www.bankofscotland.ie/company/media05/press10.htm

Market Leading Savings Account
Bank of Scotland (Ireland) is launching tomorrow a monthly savings account paying 3.75%, currently the best rate available in Ireland for any savings product.

A Rolling Programme
Approximately three branches will open on average every month for the next 14 months. The first three branches, which will be open from tomorrow, are in Ballyfermot, Dun Laoghaire and Limerick. Swords will open later this month.

Significantly Longer Opening Hours
Each Bank of Scotland (Ireland) branch will be open at least from 9am to 5pm from Monday through to Friday.
All branches will be open on Saturday from 9am to noon.
Some branches in major city centres and shopping centre locations will be open for even longer.

Kinetic^

I think its about time tbh. It might shake the other 3 major banks up.

BOS have been doing very well with the commercial side of things.

I feel that it'll be a good thing that they have extended their opening hours and this will appeal to an awful lot of people.

I for one would love longer banking hours but could not change over until they have more branches open.

Lump

I bank with them in the uk, find them very good. Hopefully they'll introduce Interest free over drafts for students, interest free balance transfer and all that type of stuff

John

ronbyrne2005

they announced it last year but its actually happening now.in their press release they said they were attracted here by banking margins TWICE the uk average!proof we are being ripped off by BOI and AIB,thats why thhe shareprices of aib and boi look cheap,the market knows they wont continue making large porfit margins.

dahamsta

Great news, very pleased about the news in general because I think it'll make the traditional Irish banks sit up and take notice, and perhaps even force the new online banks to improve their rates.

However I was disappointed and just a little bit concerned by one point in their press release, which mentions somewhat in passing that online banking will be available sometime next year. Web-based systems are critical in modern banking, and you'd imagine this will be doubly so for a bank that will have a relatively limited branch network.

I realise that security is of the utmost imporance and developing secure systems takes time, but surely they could have repurposed their existing British system, or at least use elements of it to roll out the Irish system quicker than that?

adam

BuffyBot

Web-based systems are critical in modern banking, and you'd imagine this will be doubly so for a bank that will have a relatively limited branch network.

Well, they have telephone banking available from the beginning, and when the branch network is rolled out fully, it'll be quite large.

dahamsta

Telephone banking is already old hat with young people, which I would imagine will be the majority of BoS's customers; at least at the outset. Most people I know /only/ use online banking; they don't visit a branch from one end of the year to the next, and prefer online to the phone. It begs the question, why haven't they been developing an online facility in the interim? Hedging their bets perhaps?

(Conversely, I haven't moved to BoS up until now because I still have many clients that pay by cheque or in cash, and lodgements would be a pain in the butt as I need to keep the cash flowing. Having a branch in Cork soon will be great, but now I won't want to move because of the lack of online facilties. Round we go. They're not making it easy for me to change banks, and I want to change. How are people who aren't really that bothered going to feel?)

adam

D'Peoples Voice

Ken Shabby wrote:

They're not making it easy for me to change banks, and I want to change. How are people who aren't really that bothered going to feel?)

On the contrary, they have already push pressure on Ulster Bank to sharpen up their offering, Ulster Bank have already lost customers to Ptsb, and I don't think they want to lose more!
Therefore as banks have to compete against bank of scotland where they open up, they have to offer a competitive deal, then as banks have to offer the same deals throughout the all their branches, we all benefit.
Maybe I'm just an optimist!

BuffyBot

Telephone banking is already old hat with young people, which I would imagine will be the majority of BoS's customers

I doubt it. Telephone banking still accounts for a large proportion of non-branch transactions for at least one bank I'm aware of.

Most people I know /only/ use online banking

That doesn't nessecarily mean it's true across the board.

It begs the question, why haven't they been developing an online facility in the interim? Hedging their bets perhaps?

There could be 101 reasons why. They might be behind in terms of development/testing, they may have decided that the branch roll out, product development and back office setup is a bigger priority. It could be something completely different.

nlgbbbblth

Keyser Soze 69 wrote:

I feel that it'll be a good thing that they have extended their opening hours and this will appeal to an awful lot of people.

I for one would love longer banking hours but could not change over until they have more branches open.

Ken Shabby wrote:

Most people I know /only/ use online banking; they don't visit a branch from one end of the year to the next, and prefer online to the phone.

Interesting contrast.

dahamsta

nlgbbbblth wrote:

Interesting contrast.

Try reading the whole post. Most != All.

D'Peoples Voice

Has anyone contacted Bank of Scotland to see if they are allowed set-up direct debits OUT of their savings account?
This is the one bone of contention that I have with Rabodirect!

Also, are there any fees/charges on the Bank of Scotland savings account or have they gone down the road of free fees like Ulster Bank and Ptsb?

Our man in Havana

Will they be offering cheque books etc?

BuffyBot

Well I would imagine they will be with their current accounts. They haven't really released detailed product information as for yet though.