Smile UK Reviews 

I am a longstanding customer but close to closing my account. Their Fraud Dept are out of control - self serving and devoid of any commonsense. They are completely inflexible. For some reason they have blocked the online use of my debit card despite all aspects of my account remaining fully operational including using the Dr card at ATM's. I have been told I have to ring the Fraud dept at my expense to get a block lifted. They charge for this call - regardless of my time. This is NOT for my benefit. I have dealt with their Fraud Dept before. They call out of the blue - often in a foreign accent and start asking for personal information. It sounds like scammers. Despite messaging their Customer Service Dept to get the block lifted they refuse to help and the onus is on me to call their Fraud Dept. As I have said this is self serving and unreasonable. I have never experienced anything like this with the other banks I use. Sort yourself out Smile Bank and better still sort out my debit card.

If there was a lower rating than 1 star, I would give it. We have also been with smile since the beginning, and are also moving bank. Yet another trip abroad where Smile just shuts down my access to the account “in case of fraud” and the only way to resolve this is to phone them. I’m not paying international call charges just because Smile are incompetent, and there are many other methods of ensuring account security….the ones my 3 other banking providers have used on the same trips. When I write to complain, I got an incredibly rude “we’re sorry you feel that way” rather than a genuine apology. Avoid Smile at all costs.

Smile have blocked transactions multiple times without reason and without notification causing stress and lost time sorting out with fraud. The last customer service agent was so arrogant I had to hang up. Latest one is blocked payment to lease car company so this will mean a late payment . I’m writing this on holiday trying to sort out . Absolutely awful bank

I had accounts with Smile for nearly 25 years, but I finally cracked this year when I was unable to use my debit card for a £6.20 purchase, when shopping in town. It was blocked, yet again, and the fraud team called me on a mobile I didn't have with me, several hours later to 'confirm the purchase'!

There were a lot of issues before that with verification not working, so I couldn't see statements, and the rudeness of those replying to my secure messages finally annoyed me enough that I switched my current account to another bank.

I left the credit card live, because that was connected to my PayPal account and I had been sporadically using it. Today I have closed that account too, because once again the verification has failed and I can't get into my account to examine a statement and check a purchase of nearly £300 which has just appeared as a direct debit in my new bank.

Smile is exceptionally secure, they hold onto your money, randomly block your cards so each transaction is a trip on the anxiety train, and regularly won't let anyone into your account to look at your stuff, including you! If you want a bank account which you can actually operate, and will not randomly embarrass you by blocking your cards, I suggest you stay away from Smile!

Edited to add (30 July 2026) Smile asked for further information through Trustpilot, and then didn't tell me what they wanted to know! Says it all really...so now the time to reply has expired.

I have had a current account with Smile for over 20 years. They make so many mistakes I have had enough. They frequently decline transactions for spurious reasons and then use the wrecklessly insecure SMS text message to ask me if a transaction is genuine.

I have been
with the coop then the online Smile bank since 1999. As improvements have been rolled out, the online banking has become great. App works fine with instant recognition of your purchases.
I’ve had plenty opportunities to switch to another bank, but I have decided to remain and continue with Smile Bank

I have been using the smile app for a number of years with few problems. However recently it regularly won’t connect and the same goes for the website. I have cleared my iPad memory and done all things to clear any blockages but it still only connects intermittently. I can’t be clearing the memory every time I want to use my banking app. I have no problems with any other banking apps I use so it’s definitely not my device at fault. I will have to consider leaving this bank which I really don’t want the hassle of doing.

Think it's time I left, joined smile when it first started and was very happy for many years, but the out of date app, the constant unavailability and even when I've complained they didn't get why.

I transferred a large sum of money from a legacy from my Santander account to my Smile account in January 2019. I am now buying a house and needed statements to meet the money laundering criteria. No problem with Santander who posted all my statements from 2016 to 2020 without charge. I was told by Smile that they only keep statements for 7 years and "they can't keep customer records indefinitely" This may well affect my ability to buy the property as money laundering compliance requires a clear paper trail. I have been a customer since Smile was launched? but maybe for not much longer.
________________________________________________________
I have updated this review changing the score from 1 to 3 stars since Smile has told me that they can provide the statement records that just fall outside their cut off date. I still think that a cut off date is for electronic records does not meet the needs of customers.

I am deeply disappointed by Smile Banking's recent customer support. Their system explicitly promised a turnaround time of 30 minutes to one working day to update personal details. I followed the process exactly, but the system failed to update. Instead of taking ownership of this clear technical error, their support team sent a wholly unfair and patronising response that deflected the blame onto me. They care more about the bottom line than the impact on their customers. I have given them 48 hours to resolve this failure. Unacceptable service.

If you faint your travel insurance is invalid. I have been a smile customer for decades and we use their AXA related travel insurance. In July 2025 I fainted, but had no idea of the cause because in all other respects I felt fine. We booked a holiday in September 2025, but it was not until November 2025 that we were told it was heart related so we cancelled our holiday. AXA have declined the claim because we had not notified them of the health issue. So it seems if you faint, you should inform AXA!!

Struggling to get into my account. It keeps on asking me to use my one time passcode which they’ve not sent
Smile you need to get in touch or I’m leaving…..perhaps this is like a ransom, your not likely to leave with a balance in credit

The worst bank!
Terrible service, awful restrictions on withdrawing your OWN MONEY despite passing the ridiculous security checks.
Awful 'secure messaging' service' complicated, hidden & inadequate & impossible to get through n the phone.
When they have no customers left they can congratuatae themselves on being secure!

Just a quick thankyou to Anila at Oldham for helping me unlock my account, she was patient and extremely helpfull.
Thank you!

Another customer of 20 years plus that is leaving.
Recently had transfers to my SIPP provider blocked that meant jumping through hoops to resolve.
Over the bank holiday weekend they have blocked online access via web and the app. The reason? Because I ported my mobile number from one provider to another. No warning, just blocked.
The call centre wasn't working over the bank holiday and then I have to wait in a queue to get it unblocked. The person I spoke to didn't care about the inconvenience to the customer - the process is the process.
Yes, I get that fraud prevention is important, but I'd have thought not annoying your customers was more so.
Reviewing other recent experiences and the 1.6 ratings reinforces what a great decision I've made.

I'm finally leaving Smile, don't know why i've waited so long. Some hangover of brand loyalty - as they were so great back in the day. Call up first thing in the morning and the wait times are still over 30 mins to speak to anyone. Payments take longer than any other bank. While others do chat services or instant messages, Smile's message function has users waiting 48 hours for a reply! Their staff sound bored and not interested in solving things. Clearly would be better for this bank to call it a day and direct users to some of the other good digital banks now. I'm going with Starling.

Shocking level of customer support. Online payments blocked, call the customer line and spend an hour or more on hold. Deposits blocked, call the customer line and spend an hour or more on hold. Got a problem, call the customer...... They have been saying that they have unusually high call numbers and that there may be a delay for probably close to a decade now

I'v received the products l ordered in excellent condition and very well packaged, l received them in only a few days after ordering online so that's brilliant service thank you very much, l'll certainly recommend Smile for both efficiency & quality products.
Keep up your Good Team work.
Kind Regards Mac Ravey.

Update 17/02
2nd response was even worse.
Suggesting I make sure I am going to the correct website!
Thankfully I found a solution myself, after setting up a single payment, and then I could use an existing payee to set up the standing order.
Think I will now move bank though, as lost all confidence.
*****************************************

Been with Smile for 25 years.

Had an issue this week and I messaged Smile to advise I could not set up a New Standing Order, that after entering the details, the S/O would not set up.

Reply was - these are the steps you take to set up a standing order.......

I have had to reply to say, read my message, I did not say I do not know how to create a standing order (I have set up several, and they can see I have existing standing orders.)

Very disappointed with the reply, and I will be opening a new bank account and transferring if the reply to this one, does not investigate and resolve the issue

Time and time again whenever you actually interact with them over something they are useless. Its an endemic long term problem with them, and there is absolutely no way to get them to change as you can't escalate any complaints.