2014 Lender Lists:

The Co-operative Bank Overdraft Charges @ www.co-operativebank.co.uk

The Co-operative Group is the UK’s largest mutual business with around 8 million members. Their roots can be traced back to 1844 and Ursula Lidbetter is currently in charge. We are focusing here on the Group’s banking division created in 1872 that is today served from www.co-operativebank.co.uk. This is where we explored the Co-op overdraft charges for their current accounts. Firstly, for basic banking they offer Cashminder that includes no such borrowing facility. You receive an interest-free overdraft with their Student account. You can arrange to borrow with the Standard Current Account. The Current Account Plus is their top choice that requires £800 to be paid in monthly.

Overdraft limits start off at £200 with interest charged at 18.9% EAR. With the Standard and the Plus there is £20 per annum charge for overdrafts above £200 and for formal/informal the interest is always 18.9%. With informal (unauthorised), there is a note that they waiver any charge for borrowings that last 6 consecutive working days or less providing that you had not requested an overdraft in the previous 366 days. If you miss out on this then there is a £20 usage fee and a subsequent £20 daily fee imposed should this increase. Unpaid fees are £15 each. As excessive as these fees look, they do have a cap in place.

This limit stands at £150 for unauthorised and unpaid item charges each quarter. One major incentive in switching over to www.co-operativebank.co.uk that is available for the Standard or the Plus is that this will earn you £100 and £25 is also handed to charity. The Group also runs Smile that is headed as the UK’s first full internet bank and that was launched in 1999. The costs here aren’t structured like most others. It is strange to see an annual fee (above your limit) and the informal costs are excessive, but this is saved by the cap that runs quarterly (rather than monthly when most banks set new periods).