[Closed] Co-op Bank worthless

All down to the crystal methodist Paul Flowers

Yep. Terrible management and failure to invest for the future.

It's original tenets of being an ethical bank have been swallowed up by a significant burden. Shame.

Taking over Britannia did them no favours.

£477m? Thats a lot of coke and rent boys

SO are others looking to move their accounts?

nope. Just renewed my mortgage with smile (co-op online bank of course).

but we don't keep savings there (partly as rates are rubbish).

But someone'll else will take on the mortgages/loans etc, and if I need to move the rest so be it.

SO are others looking to move their accounts?

We won't have to - we'll be owned by someone else soon!

Annoyingly, the breakdown cover that comes with our Co-Op Premier account covers campervans, whereas others (like Nationwide) generally don't. Anyway, I'll wait and see before moving.

Anyone with any money in a coop bank account is nuts, yes you'll be covered by the fcs guarantee (assuming its not more than the limit),but if coop bank goes bust you wont be able to get it for a while.

The impending bankruptcy of coop bank has been signposted for months now

I intend to leave my overdraft with the Co-Op bank as long as it's trading.

I just have my current account with them - and there's usually sod-all in that!

Quite happy to keep our joint spending account with them for the time being, scaremongering about them going pop isn't going to help matters

It's been known for a long time the Bank is in a very dodgy position, don't worry because they'll be bailed out like RBS and Lloyds will take over the management of it like the other "failures" ..

I doubt it. There's no 'banking crisis' as there was when RBS and their ilk were propped up.

The Co-op have probably just realised that there's no business model called 'ethical bank' and are suffering the consequences. They won't be bailed out for being selective in their investments, they'll just get bought out or disappear.

IHN, you might want to check the nationwide policy again. It seems to claim it covers motohomes and it's £5.50 a month cheaper than the coops.

If we had a mortgage or savings I would be too worried with staying as that had some level of protection. but as all our direct debit go through it don't want the hassle of that going wrong or becoming a customer of a bank I don't want to be.

SO are others looking to move their accounts?

Done 6 months ago.

We're in the process of trying to find a new bank who aren't total arseholes. Does such a thing exist?

We're in the process of trying to find a new bank who aren't total arseholes. Does such a thing exist?

I dont think it does, but if you find one let me know

vorlich - Member
We're in the process of trying to find a new bank who aren't total arseholes. Does such a thing exist?

You may find one that looks good.

But on closer inspection you'll discover it's just an arsehole with lipstick on it.

We're in the process of trying to find a new bank who aren't total arseholes. Does such a thing exist?

Also, I see no need to dump my co-op account yet. It won't do them any good if everyone removes their deposits, and it's all backed up.

Er are First Direct a High Street bank? Only if you can use HSBC maybe

Not a bank, but we've had no cause to fault Nationwide. Far better to deal with than anyone else I've banked with; HSBC, Barclays, NatWest.

re: Nationwide premium account and motorhomes...I was surprised to read they DO cover motorhomes 🙂 WHen my rip off AA cover ends, I will be upgrading to the premium account, its £20 year cheaper based on the breakdown alone.

I hadn't thought this through it seems. 😐

Being hand wringing leftist scum we have joint and credit cards with the 'ethical' banks. ALL our bills get paid from the joint account and it would be a proper saga if they went belly up and I defaulted that month.

We end up every month with about £3 so I'm not worried about savings (if only) but my credit record would take a hit.

Should I just bail out now? 🙄

We've had good experiences with Nationwide for our joint account and mortgage.

My view is that you're far more likely to miss a CC payment or whatever due to a computer error than the bank folding.

*If* it does fold the CC co's will be accommodating when contacted and it wouldn't affect your credit score.

I don't think it would be a permanent problem with missed payments giving you a bad credit rating but I could see it taking a few weeks to get resolved.
We use our credit card for all our monthly spending to get points. It's cleared every month but if that dd got missed that would end up with 2 months worth of spending on it, basically at the limit. If at that same time the bank was in "trouble" there might not be any way of using our debit card so just general living costs (food bills, petrol etc) would suddenly get difficult.
Also having looked around we can get the same benefits for less money so it's almost a no brained to move.

pictonroad - Member

I hadn't thought this through it seems.

Being hand wringing leftist scum we have joint and credit cards with the 'ethical' banks. ALL our bills get paid from the joint account and it would be a proper saga if they went belly up and I defaulted that month.

We end up every month with about £3 so I'm not worried about savings (if only) but my credit record would take a hit.

Should I just bail out now?

In the highly unlikely event the Bank would be allowed to continue to trade to the point of oblivion, the FSCS would have your money back within a week (usually) obviously this would be a total pain in the arse but - but not life ending, as far as I can recall this hasn't happened in the UK, not in the last 80 years or so anyway - we learned during the Great Depression that allowing Banks to fail and Joe Public losing their money is far more harmful than propping them up.

In regards to your creditors - to 'Default' you'd need to miss payments for at least 3 months, you could in theory get a reminder mark on your credit file which is harmful to your credit history - but 2 factors at play here –

Firstly, is that an issue you sound heavily exposed already, you could have a perfect history but if you've not got anymore money to pay anyone back, no one is going to lend to you? But that's me just being mean and I like to downplay the importance of ‘credit scores’ it’s not a measure of how good a person you are.

Secondly creditors won't and can't punish people for things they cannot control as long as you don't bury your head in the sand - it would be a pain but if they did fail you'd just need to phone up your creditors explain what's happened and that would be the end of it - they'll be jammed with other Co-Op customers doing the same thing, but if they wanted to check, they'd only need to see what account your payments are made from - they'll give you at least a month to sort it given the circumstance because they know they would be brutalised if they didn't, and well it's good business.

Firstly, is that an issue you sound heavily exposed already, you could have a perfect history but if you've not got anymore money to pay anyone back, no one is going to lend to you? But that's me just being mean and I like to downplay the importance of ‘credit scores’ it’s not a measure of how good a person you are.

Fair point but we do have a mortgage that needs renewing soon.

I'm reassured by the comments above I suppose but thinking about it I'll probably move anyway which is a shame because if we all do, that will be the death of the bank. 😐

If the Coop bank goes under I would be astounded if normal consumer accounts and mortgages stopped being serviced. The job of the FCS is to stop exactly that. I would expect the IT, Bank of England accounts etc to carry on working whilst the bank was shutdown. If that can be done in less than 6 months I'd be amazed.

If I had a corporate account I'd have moved it by now.

What's making you all think it'll go under ?

Do you sit on the Board or BOE ?

SO are others looking to move their accounts?

Yep, First Direct a month ago.

Anyone looking for an ethical alternative to the Coop bank could try the Dutch Triodos Bank. We have had our business account with them for 17 years as Organic Farmers but I know they do current accounts too. They have no high-street branches so it is internet or postal. But they have a very good ethical model and we have been really happy with them over the years.

https://www.triodos.co.uk/en/personal/

Welshfarmer how do you find triodos in terms of their business banking fees?

I've had co-op business accounts for several years mainly because their fees are very low. They have recently written to say they are increasing.

Possibly something to do with the mire they now find themselves in!

For us those banking fees can work out at a significant cost so worth shopping around.

Not sure as I don't do that many transactions and don't have an overdraft. Basically its about 30p per Bacs payment and 60p a cheque. Plus 60p for paying cheques in, though you only pay once if you send a load at the same time. There is no other fees on top of the transaction costs. Think my fees average out at about £3 a month