Unfortunately I had the most painful experience with this bank. On July 2019 my business account was frozen without any prior notification. I called them to find out what the reason was and they just confirmed the restriction without giving any reason. This is while several direct debits, card transactions, customer payments they all went on hold and my business suffered financial losses. A few days later I noticed that my personal account with my life savings inside it also got restricted. No reason, no clarification, no updates! Exact same thing happened to several other people who happened to be Iranian nationals. Having consulted with experienced solicitors, I have strong grounds to believe this was done based on a discriminatory measure to racially profile citizens and dual nationals of a certain country i.e. Iran. For more than 6 months my life savings were stuck in this bank without giving me any reason or a time frame within which they aim to complete their so called review. It was yesterday that I received a letter giving me a 60 day notice for closing my account after 6 months of so called "review". I went through the most stressful days of my life throughout this period and had to cancel my holiday as I was left penniless. I borrowed money from family and friends to afford my life. Lack of decency, professionalism and ethics in this bank is beyond comprehension. Not recommended at all, stay away!
Reviewed on: 6th February 2020
I have been with counting up for more than 6 months now and I have to say as a small business I found it quite easy to operate. I have my shop card reader and website gateway linked to it, business direct debits are all set up and working just like a normal bank. In general I'm using it as my main business account. However there are areas to be improved. Payment transfers need to become faster, possibility of international payments and cheque deposits also have to be facilitated in order for it to become a full scale business banking app. I also had an issue with my VAT repayment as HMRC couldn't recognise the account details in order to transfer my claimed VAT. This was the case with HMRC only. Account opening was quite easy and fast. Specially recommended for start ups who don't want to go through the time-consuming process of opening a high street business bank account.
Reviewed on: 6th February 2020
