Business current account comparison for a UK Ltd: Bank Index shows where the big four and the app banks part ways

Two price lines, one click apart

Starling charges no fee to open or run its sterling business account. Barclays charges none in year one, then GBP 8.50 a month. Both are accounts for a British limited company at authorised UK banks, and both lines sit on their Bank Index profiles one click apart.

A business current account comparison usually stops at that first line. For a small company, though, the monthly fee is one of half a dozen things that decide whether an account fits, and several of the others never appear on a bank's own product page.

Bank Index is a directory of banks and payment firms that BankStore maintains, and it grades every provider on a list of separate business needs, with the reasoning and a source behind every line on the hand-checked profiles. This notebook has spent the last few days on the British profiles a newly formed company is likely to meet first: HSBC, Barclays, NatWest, Lloyds, Starling and Tide, plus a handful of thinner entries.

Business current account comparison: which lines matter for a Ltd?

The index grades a dozen business needs, and for a young British company six of them carry the decision. Fees and opening speed come first. After them come interest on idle cash, cards for staff, what customers say, and the rule on directors who live abroad.

Those lines don't always agree with the total. HSBC tops the whole directory with an overall 9.50, yet its fee line sits at 6.5. Starling sits far lower overall and scores 9.5 on fees.

That gap is why I trust lines more than totals. The method describes the overall figure as "the average of an institution's scored needs," and adds a quarter on top for size and documentation. Large, well-documented banks climb on that quarter alone, whatever they charge a three-person company.

Fees after the free year

On fees, the high street banks and the app banks split apart, and the split widens after year one. Barclays scores 5.5, and its profile reads: "No monthly fee for the first 12 months, then GBP 8.50 a month, with transaction charges applied per the business tariff."

Lloyds follows the same pattern with its own numbers. The start-up account is free for a year and then costs GBP 10 a month, and the profile, citing Wise, mentions a hundred free electronic payments a month before each further one is charged.

NatWest offers start-ups two years of free everyday banking, then charges per payment and per cash deposit. There is a newer catch as well: for accounts opened from April 2026, "free banking stops if cash deposits pass 200,000 pounds in 12 months."

HSBC charges no monthly fee for its small business account. Cash handling costs extra there, at a branch or at the Post Office, and for a café paying in coins every week that line matters more than the headline price of nothing.

On fees, Starling sits at the top of this group. The schedule, quoted on the profile, reads: "No fee to open or run the sterling business account, no charge on Faster Payments, Bacs or standing orders and free UK cash machine withdrawals." Tide's free plan includes only five bank transfers a month before each further one costs 20p.

Opening speed: hours, days or a branch visit

A newly formed company usually needs an account before it can invoice anyone, so the onboarding line carries real cash value. The profiles record what each bank says about its own timing.

Tide leads the group on speed, by some distance. The account opens in the app "with no hard credit check," the profile says, and it "may be approved within minutes."

Starling is close behind with an in-app application, and the bank says most decisions come within a day. HSBC claims that about 65 per cent of its small business accounts open within a day, with a condition that matters later in this note: applicants must be tax resident in the UK.

Barclays aims to open accounts within five working days of receiving an application. NatWest's line is the most uneven in the group, since reviewers of Mettle, its app brand, describe "waits of weeks and unexplained rejections during account opening."

Does any UK business account pay interest on idle cash?

Interest is where the clearing banks and the app banks swap places again, and the profiles are unusually specific about it. On interest Starling scores only 1.0, because its April 2026 schedule says "account holders will not earn any interest on the business or sole trader account."

Tide scores well on interest for its Instant Saver. The profile says it "pays up to 4.00% AER for the first four months," then drops to a lower rate that depends on the plan, with no interest at all above each plan's cap.

The four older banks sit in the middle of the scale, at around one per cent. NatWest pays a little under one per cent on reserve balances below a million pounds. Barclays and HSBC offer business savings at rates between one and one and a half per cent.

On a few thousand pounds, a gap of one or two per cent is tiny. On a year of corporation tax sitting in the account, though, it can pay the accountant's whole annual fee and leave something over for the filing costs as well.

Best business current account UK for a director abroad

Here the scores turn over completely, and for many readers of this notebook it is the line that decides everything else. The best business current account UK founders can find on fees may refuse them on residency before the form is filled in.

Starling scores 1.0 on foreign-owned companies, the lowest mark here. Its eligibility page "requires all persons of significant control and all directors with account access to be residents of the United Kingdom." Lloyds also sets a firm rule, asking for "a UK resident with a UK mobile number applying for a UK business with a UK trading address."

HSBC opens a narrow door through another part of the group. Its UK small business account requires UK tax residence, and owners abroad "need another HSBC entity, such as Hong Kong." NatWest needs at least one applicant living in Britain.

Tide allows something the others refuse: directors of Companies House limited companies may live overseas. Its score still stops at 3.0, because every applicant needs a UK mobile number and a device registered to a UK app store. Our earlier note on accounts for non-resident directors covers the wider options.

What do customers say about each bank?

Satisfaction lines rest on public reviews, and the index records the share of one-star reviews wherever it says more than the average. For the high street banks, it usually does.

HSBC earns a respectable mark on a Trustpilot average of 4.4, "although 34% of reviews are one star." Barclays' profile notes that "49% of reviews are one star," and Lloyds sits close behind at forty-seven per cent.

NatWest shows how much a brand matters inside one group. NatWest itself averages 1.4 stars on Trustpilot, and Mettle, its app, averages 4.6.

Starling draws one of the strongest marks in the group from more than forty-seven thousand reviews. Tide's line is good as well, though it quotes Trustpilot's own summary of recent reviews mentioning "business accounts frozen for compliance checks and delays in resolving urgent issues."

Cards for directors and staff

Cards are where the profiles show the most practical detail, and the differences are bigger than the logos suggest. I'd check this line before any other if more than one person will spend the company's money.

HSBC's debit card is a Visa with no annual charge, but it carries "a 2.75 percent non-sterling transaction fee." Employees who need their own spending card require a separate Commercial Card. That card carries a yearly fee after the first twelve months.

Barclays takes the same 2.75 per cent on foreign spending, with spending limits set in the app. Its Barclaycard range adds cashback of one per cent above a monthly spend threshold. That suits a company with steady card costs.

NatWest scores a little higher on cards than both. Its business debit card is a Mastercard that carries no annual charge, and its credit card waives its fee once yearly spending passes six thousand pounds. Virtual cards there are kept for much larger companies.

Tide's cards are built for teams of staff. Expense cards, the profile says, cover "up to 50 people per account at GBP 5 per seat," each with its own limits and virtual cards, and paid plans drop the foreign exchange fee to zero per cent.

Starling's card is the simplest in the group. It charges no Starling fees abroad and converts at the Mastercard rate, yet its business pages show no virtual cards, employee cards or credit card.

Strength: why the clearing banks still lead

The strength lines favour the old banks, as they should. All four high street banks carry ratings between single A and double A on their UK banks, and their capital ratios sit around fourteen per cent.

Starling's capital ratio is twice that, at 28.58%. The same entry notes that it "carries no published rating from S&P, Moody's or Fitch and was fined GBP 29 million by the FCA in 2024."

Tide sits in a different category from the banks altogether. It holds no banking licence, and its profile says member funds "sit at ClearBank under FSCS cover." The protection comes from the bank behind the app, a point our note on e-money and the FSCS explains.

For a company holding less than the FSCS limit of 120,000 pounds, the strength line matters less than access to the money. Above that limit it matters a great deal, and splitting balances across two banking licences becomes worth an afternoon of paperwork, since each licence carries its own compensation limit and a second one doubles the protection.

Why do some UK banks have thin profiles?

Several banks a young company will consider have only register-based entries so far. Monzo, Santander UK and Metro Bank sit in this group. Each has an overall score between four and five, well below the older banks.

The Monzo profile shows how such an entry works. It confirms a PRA-regulated bank, its Companies House record and its incorporation date, then grades most needs at a default for a licensed bank, noting that the bank's real terms are still unchecked.

That default is a placeholder rather than a verdict. The index penalises missing information by design, taking 0.15 off the overall score for each blank need or missing detail, so thin profiles sit low until someone fills them in.

ANNA, an e-money firm, earns a decent fee mark. That mark rests on a single line on its own page. The entry is open about the ceiling on that mark: transfer and card prices were not on the page, so the score stops at 7.5. I wish more scores admitted their limits so plainly.

How to compare business current accounts in the finder

The finder turns these lines into a shortlist for one company. To compare business current accounts properly, a director picks the needs that matter, sets the region to Europe, and the order of the whole list changes to match.

A founder in Britain with little cash would probably want fees and onboarding alone, since a young company with a thin balance gains little from interest and rarely needs more than one card in its first year of trading. A director in Lisbon would also select residency, and on that line scores fall as low as 1.0. The ranking would then shift towards providers built for foreign owners, and most of the big four would drop at once, since three of them tie their small business accounts to someone living in Britain.

Every score quoted here sits on the profiles for Starling, HSBC, Barclays and Tide. The United Kingdom section lists the rest.

What the profiles cannot settle

No profile can settle the choice of a business bank account for limited company UK directors on its own. The method is explicit that "Scores are editorial judgments based on those facts and on the BankStore team's aggregated experience." Each profile is a dated snapshot, and fees, rates and eligibility rules change during the year.

A profile also cannot judge a particular company. Industry, cash handling, ownership and turnover all shape what a bank will offer. Its risk team also sees documents the public never does. An accountant who knows the company can match those facts against a bank's rules, and paying for that advice is cheaper than a refused application.

The comparison in one paragraph

For a founder living in Britain with a simple Ltd, Starling and Tide lead on fees and opening speed. The big four lead on strength, with capital ratios near 14 per cent. For a director abroad, the residency line decides first and only a few providers stay on the list, so a long comparison of fees among banks that will refuse the application is time wasted.

I'd start any comparison from that residency line. The full ranking sorts every provider by whichever needs a director selects, and that, more than any single fee, is where a fair comparison begins.