My Favorite UK Bank: Free Meeting Offices and no Foreign Transaction Fees in Europe
It was July 2016. Exams were long finished, the Master Thesis was submitted, the shy London sun was sparking bright, it was a nice summer day. I was about to go for a short trip to Romania, just before starting my new job in Chicago. I was carefree… Well, except for one thing: I had no money in Romania. All my (little) savings were in the UK and the thought of a 3% Foreign Exchange Fee for my road trip was keeping me awake at night. Now, 3% is not at all that much. It adds up, sure, but it is still quite little. However, a question was bothering me: does it have to be this way? Is there a way I can save on these annoying fees? Little did I know that I was about to get my answer a lot sooner than I expected.
As I was walking down Cromwell Road, I saw a huge banner on the window of a local bank. A bank I never noticed before. The sign was saying “No Foreign Transaction Fees with your card in Europe*”. The bank was called Metro Bank. I entered the bank curious of knowing more and I left it with a new account, a brand new Debit Card and a totally improved opinion about the current banking system. In the rest of this article I will explain why.
Prior Bank Experiences
First, let me give you a bit of background about myself and my past experiences with retail banks. I opened my first bank account at age 14, just few days after I was legally allowed to do so. Since then, I opened (and sometime closed) accounts with a total of 11 institutions in 3 different countries.
When I moved to the UK in 2012, I had to open my first bank account (with a “reputable” bank which I will not name). I was a student living in student accommodation, having no proof of address, no income, no bills. Needless to say, the experience was bad. After booking an appointment a week in advance and waiting in line to be admitted to my appointment, I was told about all the accounts I cannot open and decided to go for my only options: one basic and one saving account. Three weeks later, they mailed me two debit cards, but my name was spelled wrong, so I had to cancel the cards and redo the entire process. Total time: 1.5 months. Talking to other friends, their experiences were similar. Good thing this is something you only have to do once in your life, but still… can we do better?
Let’s contrast this with my experience four years later.
Meet Metro Bank
Let’s continue the story I started earlier, when I saw the big sign for the non-existent Foreign Transaction Fees at Metro Bank and I decided to go in. Once inside, someone greeted me and invited me to take a seat. She was not a greeter, but an actual banker who wanted to talk more about my needs and my curiosities. It turns out the ad was true, there were no transaction fees for using the card in Romania, so I decided to open an account, specially for this purpose. The branch in Earls Court has a Debit Card printing machine, so after I was done with the paperwork (20–30 minutes) and providing them with two proofs of address they printed the debit card for me on the spot. Total time: 45 minutes.
Since then, I kept being impressed by the perks they offer. It’s the little things that make the difference and I will tell you about a few of my favorite benefits:
No Foreign Transaction Fees in Europe
Paying with the debit card and withdrawing money in Europe are free of charge and follow the Mastercard exchange rate. Needless to say, the Mastercard exchange rate is the closest you can get to the mid-market rate, which means that nothing out there will give you a better deal (if it does, let me know and we can make millions together). I want to emphasize that withdrawing money from an ATM in Europe is also free, so it is a great way of taking GBP to your holiday- or home-country at the best possible exchange rate.
Free Meeting Offices
All branches that I visited had one or more meeting offices that can be booked in advance. The office is usually big enough for four people, but can be booked for personal needs as well. The office is mostly unused, so I never had an issue booking, possibly because a lot of people are not aware of this perk. I like to book the place when I need to do some deep work, when I need to hold an important meeting, when I have to sit a last-minute phone interview or just as an alternative to the coffee shop.
Actually this entire article was written from the private office in Cheapside Metro Bank… Oh, have I mentioned that using the office is free for all Metro Bank customers?
Coin Counting Machine
Those not familiar with London should know that the smallest banknote denomination is £5. This means that throughout the year you end up with a lot of spare change. The Magic Money Machines at Metro Bank are designed to solve that problem. You just dump all your money in its bucket and it sorts and counts everything for you in less than a minute. All Metro Bank branches have this machine, so you don’t have to be lucky to find one.
On top of that, they have a kids program called the 5 for 5 club which awards kids with £5 if they made one visit a month and deposit some change through the machine for five consecutive months. I believe is a great way to teach children about the importance of savings.
Safe Deposit Boxes
While this is not a free perk, I will add it regardless. Metro Bank is one of the few (or maybe the only?) banks in London that provide Safe Deposit Boxes. They are open 7 days a week, which will surely come handy, and the price is below the market rates (cheaper than alternatives).
Suggestions for improvements
Trying to be as objective as possible, there are only two items that I would say can be improved from my stand point.
First is the redundant additional security in the Internet Banking. They have the same security mechanism that I see all other banks in the United Kingdom are adopting: insert three random characters from your password. This makes usage of password managers with strong random passwords impossible (or at least really hard), which means that Metro Bank requires me to remember my password myself. While the mechanism might protect their average user, they just decreased the security of my account. Additionally, these masked passwords are tricky to implement correctly and I suspect are stored in plain text on their side.
The other item is location. When I opened my account I believe they only had offices in London. While that is clearly not the case anymore, they are still relatively small, so check the map to find a store next to you. If there is none, do not worry, they are expanding really fast, so I expect them to be nation-wide in the next few years.
Honestly, besides these two items, there is nothing I can complain about: neither product wise nor service wise.
Bottom line
Did I mention they offer free dog food to your pet? Or that the staff is really friendly? Or that they throw huge welcome parties at openings? There are lots of nice touches that make banking with Metro Bank superior to anything else. Metro Bank has my vote as the Best Retail Bank, not only in London, but in the world, and I hope this article helped you in some way.
If none of these applied to you (maybe you do not live in London?), but you are interested in more articles about banking and finance, I invite you to subscribe to my mailing list and I can let you know when I publish them. I have already posted an article about investments and brokerage firms and I plan to write more about internet-only banks, awesome credit cards and Estonian accounts. The email list is the best way to make sure you do not miss out.
Disclaimer 1: I was not financially compensated for promoting any of the products or brands in this article.
Disclaimer 2: Some of the branding used in this article belongs to Metro Bank. Some images are from their own website or from their twitter account. No infringement was intended, but please contact me at copyright@andreicioara.com if this is an issue.
