Independent service quality survey results

Business current accounts

Published February 2025

As part of a regulatory requirement, an independent survey was conducted to ask approximately 1,200 customers of each of the 16 largest business current account providers if they would recommend their provider to other small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs*). The results represent the view of customers who took part in the survey.

Overall service quality

We asked customers how likely they would be to recommend their business current account provider to other SMEs.

Ranking

Business current accounts Overall service quality survey results.  Ranking 1st place monzo 85%, 2nd place Starling Bank 82%, 3rd place Handelsbanken 77%, 4th place Tide 75%, 5th place Zempler Bank 69%, equal 12th place Bank of Scotland 53%

Online and mobile banking services

We asked customers how likely they would be to recommend their provider’s online and mobile banking services to other SMEs.

Ranking

Business current accounts Online and mobile banking services survey results.  Ranking 1st place monzo 88%, 2nd place Starling Bank 86%, 3rd place Tide 77%, 4th place Zempler Bank 75%, equal 5th place NatWest 70%, 11th place Bank of Scotland 63%

SME overdraft and loan services

We asked customers how likely they would be to recommend their provider’s SME overdraft and loan services to other SMEs.

Ranking

Business current accounts SME overdrafts and loan services survey results.  Ranking 1st place Handelsbanken 68%, 2nd place Metro Bank 61%, 3rd place Santander 60%, 4th place Virgin Money 58%, equal 5th place Royal Bank of Scotland 56%, 11th place Bank of Scotland 44%

Relationship/account management

We asked customers how likely they would be to recommend their provider’s relationship/account management to other SMEs.

Ranking

Business current accounts Relationship/account management survey results.  Ranking 1st place Handelsbanken 85%, 2nd place monzo 77%, 3rd place Starling Bank 76%, equal 4th place Metro Bank 65%, equal 4th place Tide 65%, equal 11th place Bank of Scotland 55%

Services in branches and business centres

We asked customers how likely they would be to recommend their provider’s branch and business centre services to other SMEs.

Ranking

Business current accounts Services in branches and business centres survey results.  Ranking 1st place Handelsbanken 72%, 2nd place Metro Bank 69%, 3rd place Lloyds Bank 56%, 4th place Virgin Money 54%, 5th place Bank of Scotland 52%

These results are from an independent survey carried out between January 2024 and December 2024 by BVA BDRC as part of a regulatory requirement.

Bank of Scotland has published this information at the request of the Competition and Markets Authority so you can compare the quality of service from business current account providers. In providing this information, we are not giving you any advice or making any recommendation to you and we can only give you information about our own products and services.

SME customers with business current accounts were asked how likely they would be to recommend their provider, their provider’s online and mobile banking services, services in branches and business centres, SME overdraft and loan services and relationship/account management services to other SMEs.

The results show the proportion of customers of each provider, among those who took part in the survey, who said they were ‘extremely likely’ or ‘very likely’ to recommend each service.

Participating providers: Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Handelsbanken, HSBC UK, Lloyds Bank, Metro Bank, Monzo, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander, Starling Bank, The Co-operative Bank, Tide, TSB, Virgin Money, Zempler Bank**.

Approximately 1,200 customers a year are surveyed across Great Britain for each provider; results are only published where at least 100 customers have provided an eligible score for that service in the survey period.

19,400 people were surveyed in total.

Results are updated every six months, in August and February.

*SMEs include businesses, clubs, charities and societies with an annual turnover/income of up to £25m (exclusive of VAT and other turnover-related taxes).

**Interviews with customers of Cashplus Bank are reported as Zempler Bank.

To find out more visit BVA-BDRC.com/business-banking-service-quality

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