Triodos Bank bristol

Investing your money in a bank that only funds environmentally conncious projects is a great way of making a difference. One of the biggest steps an individual can take and it will barely cause any inconvenience. I have found Tridos to be as good as my previous bank.

One major problem encountered - which received a pretty dismissive response from the Customer Services team - although to be fair it's more of a strategic issue than a day - day operational problem. I attempted to pay a large cash sum from a pension into my Triodos current account. The pensions company (a large UK insurance firm) was unable to make the payment as Triodos are not on their list of approved banks for anti money laundering purposes. Fortunately I was able to make the payment into a current account I have with one of the big four banks. The point - which I attempted to make to Triodos customer services - is that while Triodos might consider itself a 'real' bank there are significant and major issues which they need to address before they are able to offer a full banking service. Clearly Triodos is not yet seen as an established member of the UK financial services sector. That said the day - day operation of the Triodos current account seems to be working well so far though limitations such as no overdraft, lack of branches, difficulty of paying in cash etc. may cause difficulties for some customers. On a positive note pretty much anything you need to do in terms of configuring the current account and debit card can be done easily on line. One feature which I find exceptionally useful and a security 'plus' is the text message which can be set for card debit transactions. The text usually pings on my phone before I've left the store. Other useful features such as balance updates, warning if balance drops below x etc. All in all for day-day use the Triodos current account is now my account of choice. Well worth the £3.00 a month, even though other (possibly less ethical) banks provide 'free' banking. There is a lack of integration within their internet banking system which means that as an existing customer a full application form has to be completed in order to apply for e.g. a savings account. Triodos also (strangely nowadays) uses snail mail a lot for communication. Again this is an indication of the lack of integration within Internet Banking. At this stage I would say use Triodos for its ethical views (which can at times be somewhat extreme,one sided and lack nuance), the ways it tries to manage money for social good and ease of use and security of their current account. But for serious banking which may involve cross institutional money transfers, overdrafts, loans etc. stay with one of the major players

Contacted the bank ref. an environmental project as i understood this was their speciality , but I was met with arrogance on the reception and no one had the courtesy to return my enquiry...a big shock .

An ethical bank is not easy to find. Even less easy is it to find a reliable bank which gives one a sense of confidence. Clearly it is growing and I have every confidence that it will go on to grow and become an example to the, sometimes less than ethical, banking community.

Where you're money is really matters and with Triodos I have the confidence of saying it is going where it is doing the best it can.

I was a little hesitant after reading some reviews about slower service and long wait times to open an account but my experience has been great! It was super quick and easy to change, the app is easy to use and they process my transactions quickly (slightly slower than the big banks but still within 24hrs and it's a small price to pay for not funding fossil fuels!) Customer service has been great - would totally recommend switching to Triodos.

Although the ethical approach is commendable, something seems to have gone wrong with the organisation of this bank. The staff are helpful when you speak with them but they are clearly chronically under-staffed as everything takes much longer to process and get an account setup in the first place. I was willing to be patient for awhile but have been waiting half a year now to setup a business account and ultimately have had to go elsewhere. The recent decision to only allow businesses with a turnover of £50K+ seems very exclusive and I don't like how smaller start-ups potentially have this option taken away from them now when trying to be ethical at the same time.

Great ethical bank. Excellent customer services. Great, easy to use app. Can't fault my experiences with them.

Peace of mind that your money is being put to use in an ethical way. It's a shame there is still a reliance on an outdated digipass (piece of plastic sent to all account holders to authentic various activities), this type of e-waste is entirely avoidable and doesn't demonstrate a particularly well thought out "ethical"/environmental culture. It's also a real pain in the a** for customers vs. fingerprint/face ID/any other modern form of authentication.....

Compared to its Dutch alternative, Triodos UK does not have enough people working in the costumer service. Therefore, its already taken me 1 month and 1 week to get an account. I've been trying email (response > 8 days), telephone (> 5 people in the que each time, resulting in > 30min waiting time), and Facebook (response in 2 days, but not at all helpful). It's that I'm really eager to get a sustainable bank account, but this makes me doubt whether I should just switch to a more easy process. I still don't have my account and I'm very frustrated. Triodos UK should pull itself together and run things more smoothly, somehow.