Best banks and bank accounts in UK 2024

How do I find the best bank account?

The best bank account for others might not suit you. Some savers with a healthy balance may want to find an account that pays good interest; others could be looking for an account that doesn't charge through the nose for an overdraft.

At Which?, we think the way your bank or building society treats you should be an essential part of finding the best account.

So, we've done the hard work for you. Every year, we survey thousands of current account customers and ask them to rate the service they receive. This gives us a Which? customer score.

We then calculate the product score of almost 40 current accounts to find our Which? Recommended Providers (WRPs) – the UK banks and building societies that offer great products and top-notch customer service.

Best banks and bank accounts

Our tables are ranked by scores, so look at the top of them for the best banks and best bank accounts.

The first table lists the banks we were able to get enough customer responses for, with a product score for their best-scoring current account.

The second table lists all the current accounts rated by our experts.

Bank reviews

Our bank reviews include our Which? Recommended Providers (WRP), plus some banks that narrowly missed out.

Starling Bank - Which? Recommended Provider

• Customer score (satisfaction and likelihood to recommend): 83%
• Product score for current account: 74%
• Access: App, online, telephone 

Starling is once again named a WRP having secured the top customer score for the fourth year running. 

Customers gave it the top rating for service overall, complaints handling, mobile banking and online banking. Like most banks, it fell slightly short of the mark for telephone banking, though accounts are primarily operated via the app. 

It's still one of the cheapest banks on the market for both spending abroad (the Starling debit card is fee-free for purchases and foreign ATM withdrawals anywhere in the world) and overdrafts (as low as 15%, depending on your credit score). Adding another string to its bow, Starling now pays 3.25% AER on balances of up to £5,000 (it previously paid 0.05%). 

Starling fined by Financial Conduct Authority

You should know that Starling was fined £29m for failings in its financial crime systems and controls in October 2024. These failings were significant and related to over 54,000 accounts opened for high-risk customers between September 2021 and November 2023, as well as issues with its automated screening system between 2017 and 2023. 

While we don’t condone the lax systems and processes at Starling that led to these failings, we are encouraged that the bank has since apologised and made the required improvements, including reviewing historical transactions and customer accounts. 

We are still confident that Starling provides an excellent day-to-day banking service that we recommend.

• Go further: the Money Helper bank account fees and charges tool can help you compare current accounts offered by most banks based on what they charge for different services and facilities. 

First Direct - Which? Recommended Provider

• Customer score (satisfaction and likelihood to recommend): 82%
• Product score for current account: 83%
• Access: App, online, telephone

First Direct has remained at or near the top of our tables for as long as we've been surveying the public. Like Starling, it has a string of five star ratings and is named a WRP for current accounts. 

It's the only bank with four out of five stars for telephone banking – all other banks have three stars or less – and First Direct performed best of 11 banks in a Which? investigation into fraud helpline waiting times.

You can often earn a generous cash bonus if you switch your bank account and foreign debit card fees were scrapped in 2023 (customers used to pay 2.75% to withdraw cash or spend money abroad). You also benefit from a generous interest-free overdraft buffer of £250, but beyond this, an overdraft is very expensive at 39.9%.

First Direct is a division of HSBC. If you have accounts with both, limit deposits to below £85,000 across both brands so your money is fully covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

• Find out more: who owns who in banking?

What about Monzo, Chase, Nationwide and Revolut?

We don't just pick Which? Recommended Providers (WRPs) on the basis of their customer score. We also calculate a product score, looking at dozens of elements including rewards and benefits, fees and charges, and how you can operate the account.

Chase and Nationwide achieved excellent customer scores, but their product scores were below average, preventing them from achieving WRP status.

Monzo and Revolut were also highly rated by customers, but missed out on becoming WRPs because we only endorse banks with strong consumer protections. 

Revolut doesn't have a banking licence in the UK. Instead, it operates under an e-money licence here so you aren't covered under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). While e-money firms must still ringfence your funds in a segregated account, to protect it in cases of insolvency, we can only recommend the more robust, independent FSCS safety net.

Since 2019 we've also insisted that WRPs be signed up to the authorised push payment scam code to protect victims of fraud. Unlike most current account providers, Monzo, Chase and Revolut have not signed up so we can't recommend them. 

• Find out more:Is your money safe with Revolut? 

Best banks for branch customer service

Nationwide's product score meant it missed out on becoming a Which? Recommended Provider but it's the highest scoring provider with a branch network. 

Customers rated it highly for both branch service (four out of five stars) and online banking (the full five stars). 

The building society has promised to not leave any town or city until at least 2026 and currently has more branches than any other banking brand following thousands of closures by the big high street brands since 2015. 

• Find out more: is your local bank branch closing?

The greenest banks - our Eco Providers

You might not think twice about the environmental impact of choosing one bank over another, but many UK high street banks are among the worst culprits when it comes to financing fossil fuels.

To help you choose a greener bank, we examined the environmental policies of 13 of the UK’s leading current account providers. 

Only three earned the Which? Eco Provider badge: 

• Nationwide Building Society
• The Co-operative Bank
• Triodos Bank

Our focus was their fossil fuel policies, analysed with help from experts at non-profit research and campaigning organisation Reclaim Finance. We also combed through statements on agricultural commodities such as beef, soy, timber and palm oil. 

We considered transparency levels and whether banks had credible targets to reduce exposure to environmentally damaging sectors. And we checked whether they publish independently verified data and have signed up to commitments such as the UN-led Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), or committed to standards such as the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) and Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). 

• Find out more: is your bank a Which? Eco Provider or a fossil fuel financier?

Best banks if you have a disability

If you're one of the 16 million people in the UK – almost one in four – with a disability, your bank should make services as accessible as possible.

Which? asked more than 2,700 disabled people from Which? Connect and the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers to share their experiences of using banking services in March 2023. 

First Direct and Nationwide achieved the highest customer scores, while Barclays and TSB were the worst rated banks.

See our full table of scores for 12 current account providers.

Banks have a legal obligation under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments for disabled customers. You should never be asked to pay for these. Some simple steps can help make life easier for disabled customers, but which banks offer them? 

Major current account providers confirmed which accessible services they offer in May 2023:

Best student bank accounts

If you're about to go to university, already a student or recently graduated, you can access current accounts from almost all high street banks with special perks.

To find the best account, look at these factors, in order of most to least important:

1. Interest-free overdrafts - the more money you can borrow for free, the less you'll have to pay in interest. Top student accounts offer £3,000 free overdrafts by your third year.
2. Freebies - you could get free cash, railcards and other such perks. Make sure you'll use them.
3. Which? customer score - we survey customers of banks (not only students) to produce a customer score.
4. Local branches - with branches closing at record rates, check your bank has a branch you can get to.
5. Interest - some accounts will pay interest on your balance, though you could earn more with a savings account.

You may not get the maximum overdraft – banks will assess your eligibility on an individual basis based on your credit score. A handful of banks impose funding requirements to qualify for the full overdraft, or extend their overdrafts in instalments. 

Also note that you don't have to stay with the same provider – you can switch accounts in seven days using the current account switching service, though check that your new bank will match your current interest-free overdraft first. 

When you graduate, many banks will turn your student account into a graduate account, often with similar perks, though the free overdraft tends to reduce each year until it turns into a standard account.

• Find out more: how to pay off your debts

About Which?’s bank account research

Customer score

The Which? rating for customer satisfaction is based on feedback from real customers. The score is made up of a customer's overall satisfaction with the brand, and how likely they are to recommend that brand to a friend.

We surveyed 4,550 members of the general public about their current accounts in August 2023. Where no star rating is given, the sample size was either too small (-) or the provider does not offer this service (n/a).                      

Product score

This is our rating of current accounts. We analyse dozens of different elements, including rewards and benefits, fees and charges, and how you can operate the account, to calculate a product rating score.

Where banks have multiple accounts, we have shown the highest score it achieved from our analysis.

How we pick Which? Recommended Providers

A customer score of at least 70% makes a brand eligible for Which? Recommended Provider status, but we'll only give this if customers rate it highly for key services and one of its main current account achieves an average or above product score.

Until this October 2024 we also expected banks to be signed up to a voluntary code for compensating victims of authorised push payment scams.

But as a new mandatory code has come into effect, membership of the voluntary code is no longer a must for recommended provider status. However, we won't award it when we have concerns about how a bank is treating its customers.