Chase, Starling, Triodos among the big winners
You know what we think about different banks, money apps and building societies, but what do you think? Well, the 2024 British Bank award winners are chosen completely by customer votes, so they’re a good indicator of which ones are your favourites..
The 2024 ceremony took place on 9 May 2024, and here are the banks that took home the big awards.
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What are the British Bank Awards?
The British Bank Awards are annual awards by our sister site Smart Money People. The winners are decided solely with customer reviews and ratings, of which 150,000 were collected over 14 weeks.
There’s a massive 31 categories, including best bank, best mortgage broker and best business bank. We’ve shared the core categories below, but you can see the full list of BBA winners here.
Chase: Best British Bank and Best Current Account Provider
Chase picked up two awards: best British bank and best current account provider, both of which it also won last year.
Chase is a digital bank that lets you earn 1% cashback on your spending, even when abroad. It’s got an easy-to-use and excellent app to handle all of your transactions.
Customers reviewing Chase raved about the customer service, the cashback and interest rates.
Starling Bank: Best Banking App and Best Children’s Financial Provider
Starling Bank won the awards for best banking app and best children’s financial provider.
Starling Bank is another fully digital bank. Its app is innovative and helps you effectively manage your money — with “Spaces” to divide up your spending and analysis on where your money goes. You can also pay using virtual cards.
Customers reviewing Starling really loved the app, feeling like they could manage their money easily with the savings paces.
Customers of Starling’s Kite Card, its dedicated card for kids, felt that it helped their children learn more about money and found it really easy to use.
Triodos: Best Ethical Financial Provider
Triodos won best ethical financial provider at the British Bank Awards.
At Be Clever With Your Cash, we’ve written in the past about Triodos, with Andy commenting that you can’t get any better with an ethical bank. It’s another digital-only bank, except it uses your savings and investments to fund ethical projects — it’s exceptionally transparent about where it puts its money.
This sentiment really comes through in its customer reviews over at Smart Money People. Customers love how transparent the bank is and feel it’s truly committed to sustainability.
Cheddar: Best Newcomer
Cashback app Cheddar was voted best newcomer in the awards.
Cheddar lets you send and receive money from friends and family as well as earn cashback on your transactions using Open Banking. You can also earn cashback from gift cards bought through the app.
Customers found Cheddar to be simple and easy-to-use, with many recommending friends to the app.
Chip: Best Personal Finance App
Chip was voted to be the best personal finance app in the awards.
Chip is an auto-savings and investments app that’s well loved by its customers. It works using Open Banking, making it easy to put away money regularly.
Customers rating Chip at Smart Money People raved about its customer service and feel that the app is easy to use.
Monzo: Best Business Banking Provider
Monzo took home the award for best business banking provider.
Monzo is another digital-only bank. It launched a business account in 2020, available to sole traders and limited companies.
Monzo Business customers raved about its customer service, found the processes seamless and easy and enjoy banking with Monzo for their businesses.
I route most of my daily card spending through Chase to get the 1% cashback really easy to use, and instant transfers between savings and current accounts so can make sure my reserve cash is working hard most of the time. It doesn’t provide purchase protection as it’s a debit card, at least I have the choice of 1% cashback or using my credit card for purchase protection, I sometimes use both as only part needs to be paid by credit card to qualify. Really like the app, and the reassuring instant messages when I make a payment.
I also have Chip, but don’t use it much and taken most of my money out of it given the problems and hassle I have had accessing my money, and literally you are not allowed to speak to anyone, taking ages to sort things out through emails and messaging. Not worth the worry. Chase on the other hand has 24 hour human customer service which is great.
I use and like Chase (even if it’s got US parentage!)
However I still have not received an Annual Tax/Interest statement for this year; I’m told it will be ‘later’!
Every other bank, money app, building society and financial institution has informed me of my interest totals.
Why do I have to chase Chase?!
Chase is a British bank? I don’t think so.