Methodology for banking scores
You'll find scores on our banking reviews. Here's how we came up with them.
You may have noticed (you did, right?) that our current account pages, tables and reviews come with scores. They’re there to help consumers figure out how good a company and its products are, at a single glance. But they wouldn’t be fair, and we wouldn’t be transparent, if we didn’t tell you how we came up with them.
We publish 2 types of score:
- Finder’s expert score. Our experts look at the features of a product (in this case, a current account), how much it costs and what it offers to users, then rate it.
- User reviews. We ask you to tell us about your experience as a customer of the brands we cover. You can submit a comment directly through the relevant review, and each year we gather more user reviews through a customer survey. We show the results of this survey in an annual league table, and use it to determine our annual customer satisfaction awards, too.
What is the Finder score?
Our expert team evaluates various products in our database, assigning each one a score out of 10. A higher score means the product is more competitive and may offer better value.
If you want peace of mind, this rating will give it to you. These products offer the best value and outcomes considering various product features, terms, conditions and price.
Well-balanced products that provide what you need, offering a healthy mix of competitive features at a good price. However, they’re not quite the best in class.
Bottom line: You can find better, but these products still offer reasonable value and have the basics sorted.
These products may not offer much value in the long run, and there are better options available.
What factors do we take into account?
We assess products across a number of key areas:
- App rating. This is calculated by averaging the banking app’s score in the Google Play Store and the App Store.
- Fees. We consider whether there is a monthly fee for the account and also whether the account charges for things like cash deposits, ATM withdrawals, paying a direct debit or having your bank card delivered. If there are charges for making purchases abroad or taking out money from a foreign ATM , that is also taken into account.
- Customer service. We score this based on user feedback, industry reports, customer reviews and forum discussions.
- Green credentials. We score this based on our green bank ratings, which looks at a provider’s operation emissions, net zero targets and financing of fossil fuels.
- Account access. How can you access your account – through a mobile app, online banking, a bank branch or telephone banking? We also look at whether customer support channels are 24/7.
- Payment features. Can you deposit cash and cheques into your account, as well as make and receive international payments? These features are not as universal as you might think. We also examine whether there are other payment features available, such as a cashback programme or option to round-up spare change from your purchases.
- Extra features. Here, we look at additional tools that may come with an account, such as spending categories, budget planners, saving pots or card freezing, as well as any special features, such as the ability to check your credit score.
We average all these scores to come up with an overall Finder score.
Your reviews and our customer survey
You can see review stars at the top of our review pages, if we’ve received more than 10. These are from consumers just like you who use our site and want to review the products and providers they use. We include responses we’ve received in our annual customer satisfaction surveys. We also show the results of each survey in a league table in guides and in our awards pages.
In December 2023, we ran a customer satisfaction survey on current accounts. 750 people answered and told us how happy they are with their current account provider. We’ve turned their answers into a star rating of between 1 and 5 and we show this in our annual league table of bank account providers.
★★★★★ – Excellent
★★★★★ – Good
★★★★★ – Average
★★★★★ – Subpar
★★★★★ – Poor
Customer satisfaction score methodology
The survey asked respondents how satisfied they are with their current account on a scale from 1 to 5, and also whether they would recommend it to a friend or not.
We turned the answers into an overall star rating that takes into account:
- How many people would recommend the account vs how many people wouldn’t. If you say you’d recommend your bank to a friend when sitting at the pub in front of a pint, it must mean it’s really good (the bank, not the pint). This forms 50% of our customer satisfaction rating.
- How many people rated a provider five out of five. Wow, five out of five? This counts for 25% of our customer satisfaction rating.
- The average score each current account provider got. This tells us if a bank offers quite a solid service even though it doesn’t have loads of top ratings… or if it’s just not that great. This parameter forms the last 25% of our overall customer satisfaction score.
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