For my American friends: all "checking" in the UK is free. All ATM use for normal ATMs (those you find at banks, not the shady ones at the convenience store) are free, even if that bank isn't yours.
This is obviously only a day-to-day thing, but I think most people have expressed feelings of ambivalence about banking in the comments here: it's somewhere to store money. In the general case, the UK banks do that better.
I do not have any experience with anything advanced like mortgages or loans.
Also bank transfers, direct debits (Paying bills automatically) etc, online banking, are all free and work really pretty well. Typically a bank transfer will be in the recipients account within a few hours if it's to a different bank, or within less than that if it's the same bank.
I'm interested in some examples of the differences. One thing that struck me when I lived in Japan was how easy it was to set up automatic payment of things like rent and utilities and I thought, wow the US needs these things (I also thought it was cool how I could deposit cash and the atm would count it and update my passbook and how there were signs saying please don't take out more than 100 bills at a time) but all that is here now and I find US banking rather non-sucking overall.
Well, we must be living in a different UK then. I would be actually willing to pay a monthly fee for a bank account at a bank that has a call centre with staff who actually speak English.
Try an American bank some time (I had a British bank account for much of the 27 years I lived there, and have had various US banks for the past 6 years). Of course there's always room for improvement, but if you haven't tried banks in both countries, you really don't know how good you have it in the UK.
Barclays is pretty good, but all the in branch staff are good.
All call centers suck, and all telephone support sucks IMHO.
I certainly wouldn't pay extra just to get telephone support. How often do you need it? If you need it a lot, then that's a really really niche use case.
It may be due to the Barclays online banking being pretty solid. HSBC is also fairly good.
Well, it's not really when I call them (I don't call them, I either try to sort out stuff online or if I can't, I just walk into a branch) - it's when they call me. Like when someone is fraudulently trying to use my card details (happens every now and then). It is really annoying when you need to discuss urgent and important matters and you simply don't understand what they're saying.
My bank, one of the 3 biggest in the country, has offered me nothing but excellent phone support. Quick to pick up the phone, knowledgeable staff, and quick and correct answers to my problems. So obviously quality phone support is far from impossible.
UK Banks, hahaha. Don't make me laugh. While it is great to have a bank that actually pays interest, they have only just started to move away from signatures for all transactions, and towards pins.
Plus, they have required huge bailouts as well, I think the RBS is now 70% owned by the government.
Australian banks are actually ones that have come out very well, limiting there exposure to toxic assets, no gov bailouts. Of course, Australia has maintained a very strong economy so far.
>UK Banks, hahaha. Don't make me laugh. While it is great to have a bank that actually pays interest, they have only just started to move away from signatures for all transactions, and towards pins
UK has been chip+pin for some years now. Most places won't accept non-chip cards any more.
Also the story with banks isn't the same all over. For example, Barclays, one of the biggest banks in the UK accepted no government bailout, and continues to post big profits.
FWIW, This may be true in the US, but certainly isn't a worldwide phenomenon.
For example, UK banks pretty much work really well. Seeing US banking in comparison is like using a time machine to go back to the 1950s.