Cater Allen Reviews 

Opened a new business account 2 months ago and never been able to use it. They don't do what they say and won't deal with your complaints. Fed up with idle promises not followed up on. Complete waste of time and effort. Best avoided unless you just want to gift them all your earnings. Don't normally leave reviews but others deserved to be aware if considering CaterAllen.

Been with Cater Allen and it's predecessors for over 30 years. From an excellent 5* customer service to zero in 2 years. Tried to make online purchase(s) where they send a security number to your mobile. 3 times online purchases failed as weak signal means no code received and purchases voided, after filling out all the info required. Worse still the same system operates when you need to see/download statements and you cannot get them because no mobile phone signal = no code = no account access. Also it takes over 10 minutes to answer the phone. Other banks offer email security codes as well as text, so things run smoothly. This firm has gone from great to junk, thinking now of shutting account. p.s. we have a joint account and until I asked for paperless statements they were sending 2 lots of statements out, one for me and one for my wife...same account! how's that for eco friendly

I always had reasonable service from Cater Allen and the old internet banking facility was basic, but it worked. I stuck with them because it seemed easier than switching.

The new internet banking upgrade, however is the stuff of user experience nightmares - badly organised with truly stupid design decisions like NOT allowing you to copy-and-paste from the pages (and I could almost guarantee that decision was taken on the basis of "security", that or some vague notion of defeating screen scrapers). Straw, meet the camels back.

New business account (easily) opened at Starling, payments moved across (manually - Cater Allen is not on CASS it appears!). Nuff said.

The "new" online banking is awful. It's actually hard to understand how they could have botched this up any worse. I have been a customer for 5 years and while I was previously frustrated with the archaic payment processing times and 1990's-era online banking experience, at least it was reliable.

I put off moving to Starling when they announced the new online banking was coming, but now that it is here I'm definitely moving to Starling as soon as possible.

Shocking website. Impossible to gain access using credentials I know to be correct. Error messages thrown which are not 'translated' into understandable context.

Thank goodness there is only one final transaction I have to do - empty my account and close it.

I am in agreement with the frustration experienced by other customers of the downgrade of their website in October 2020.
I would like to recommend that they have a key-card system which some banks use. The mobile telephone system is not safe.
As a temporary measure they should increase the time allowed for customers to enter data. The short time allocated is discriminating against older people.
Security is an issue, but some measures used in the IT industry generally are analogous to a builder bricking up the doors and windows of a house to keep it safe from burglars.

Glad it's not just me. Reading the other reviews has reassured me that the new website is awful. It's unusable. It can take many attempts before it lets me in. When I did get in this evening (after entering exactly the same details), I then attempted to transfer some money. It asks for the OTP which I provided. It then asks for authorisation for my location settings (why?) locks up the session and when I'm taken back to the front screen to it locks my account so I'll have to call in the morning to resolve.

Absolutely shambolic. It's supposed to be an upgrade but it's anything but. I can't go through so many hoops when I wish to access my money so I suspect I'll be looking at moving my account. What a shame. I've never had an issue before in the 14 years Ive banked with CaterAllen.

Incredibly outdated website, with even the latest version (today) having poor usability and very limited functionality. The standing orders section of the websote doesnt show transactions before the 'upgrade' and the menu system itself is very unfriendly. I'll be moving away to another provider now.

Cater Allen have a technology problem. They don't understand it. Somehow, even in 2020 they have failed to listen to feedback, failed to learn any lessons and failed to employ anyone with the slightest clue about how to use technology effectively.

That said they are a functional bank and have not made any mistakes with my finances as far as I know.

But even with their latest website redesign in October 2020, they have made some terrible blunders. A few of the most obvious:
(1) They limit your maximum password length to 20 characters. That's not very secure guys, and there is no good reason for it.
(2) They require you to have these characters in your password: Uppercase, lowercase, number and special character, making it difficult to remember and type. This is purely due to their ignorance, and does not improve security.
(3) When entering your password, they have not made sure LastPass (a popular password manager) works, it simply cannot be used to manage your new Cater Allen password. To add insult to injury, you cannot paste from your clipboard into the password field, they have specifically disabled that feature. This is misguided, as it results in forcing people to use less secure passwords.
(4) Every money amount in my list of transactions has the text "GBP" before it (no pound sign either). How rubbish.

Let me be clear, all of these points are common errors when designing an online system, and all of them can be avoided by a minimum amount of user testing, feedback sessions or even just employing someone who knows what they are doing.

Source: I have professionally designed online systems for over 15 years.

UPDATE: I would like to address "simonblonde" comments in another review below...

a) simonblonde states "Yes the login is time consuming, but that is a necessary evil in this cyber world".

It's not the login that is time consuming, it's the entire process of attempting to do anything at all with the bank account! It's incredibly poorly designed.

b) simonblonde states "you don't need an app.......just bookmark the Homepage onto your phones Homescreen, and hey presto! You're in".

Incorrect, that gets you to the login webpage where you would have to enter your password, etc. Most other modern banking apps have biometric login, meaning you only have to touch the fingerprint reader or look at the screen to securely gain access. No need to remember passwords, or write them down, etc.

The bank’s charges are low which reflect the services they provide. Yes, it’s all pretty old fashioned but frankly that’s all I want from a bank. I don’t want a more fancy web service and I don’t want to be sold additional banking products. Their customer service operatives (call Center) are always polite, security conscious and ultimately helpful. Shame to see so many bad reviews from people who want more but pay less.

I've been a customer for over 10 years and, sadly, have nothing positive to say about this dreadful bank.

To summarise, banking with Cater Allen is painful, frustrating and a complete waste of your time and energy.

The technology is hilariously outdated. Their new banking system, launched this morning (12th October 2020) is even worse than before.

Avoid Cater Allen at all costs.

I have been a customer for 20 years. For the past 18 months the Cater Allen IT systems have broken - you can no longer sync software like Sage and Quickbooks with the Cater Allen online systems. Their "open Banking" launch is a disaster and they have not fixed it for so long. In the meantime the sync feature has been switched off the old system. This is incompetence. It has never been the same since Santander dictated the IT systems.

So glad I made the change to Starling Bank. I changed banks when they switched platforms and the system lost my scheduled payments, then I had to set all of them up again manually. Until I changed banks I did not realise how many features of business banking I was missing out on! Cater Allen is business banking stuck in the early 2000's.

I'm seriously considering moving my business from this bank now. I'm tired of the outdated website, issues with logging in and the considerable delay when having to request a password change (via post). The new website that was promised last month has failed to materialise and this is looking like an organisation that is being left behind by the others like Starling. Simply not good enough. I cant see me being with them next year.

I've been with Cater Allen for 15 years. I used to be very happy and liked their online banking experience. However. Last September (2019) something changed. I know this because some months later I was contacted by a Utility saying that I was failing to make payments. I looked at the standing order and instead of the reference being my Account Number. Inexplicably it had changed to "No reference45". I back-tracked to last Sept and could see that the reference changed that month.
I called them and asked how that happened. Turns out there was a major systems changeover then and my reference got altered.
I've recently just been online to make a transfer between my business account and my personal account. Previously that was easy. But this time I've had to go set up the "payee" fresh as if I'm paying a new external person.
Crazy.
Oh. The website is cheap and ill thought out. Seriously. It's a backward step. Counter intuitive. Annoying and quite frankly feels cheap.
I'm struggling to see the point of Cater Allen. It doesn't seem to offer anything over a high street bank. In fact it feels worse.

It took 14 months, 3 application forms (because they delivered the wrong form to my house twice) and 3 phone calls to the bank to chase them up, where only to discover that there was yet another problem with the application form. This happened on all 3 occasions and only when I phoned the bank on my accord, which I also corrected repeatedly on all 3 phone calls.
Would I feel comfortable letting this operation hold millions of pounds of my money? No. I'll be switching my account as soon as I can.

Only use online. Its a very poor website and light years away from expectations of a modern bank in terms of usability and benefits. I use Revolut for private banking and the difference is astounding. Closing my CA account.

Completely awful service from start to finish, masquerading as a private bank, better facilities with my current account bankers - Handelsbanken.
Account been open for two weeks, already opening an account elsewhere and will be closing this account

Unfortunately the service has plummeted - nothing to do with COVID. Unable to use the payments services for almost a year, statements not loading. Account showing 'no details' etc. and no apologies from the staff when I did manage to get through. Just closed my account and didn't even get an acknowledgment that it was done.

As hard as it is to believe a bank can be as bad as people say it is in these reviews, I can testify that the picture of an institutionally incompetent company that really doesn't care about customer service is absolutely accurate.

My saga started with a protracted application process which was characterised by bureaucracy, extreme delay and very poor comms from their offshore service centre. The application process often was illogical and slowed to a snails pace by the use of the postal service rather than emails. As a result, it was many weeks before my accounts were ready to be used. When they were, there was an 'activation window' which was never properly explained but took many times longer than promised and meant that the end of the 2019/20 tax year was much closer than was comfortable to ensure I used my tax allowances efficiently. When money was remitted to my account, because of human error, it wasnt posted to my account for another 10 days, by which time, I was into a new tax year and stood to lose several thousand pounds in excess tax.

After more delays, CA did eventually agree that they were liable for the tax loss but made only a derisory offer of compensation for the considerable inconvenience I had suffered as a result of having to liquidate personal assets to pay bills that should have been covered by the remittances due.

Their approach to complaints is perfunctory and dismissive, with no attempt made to properly explain the problems they have created or give confidence that they will learn from their mistakes.

The problems didnt end there, of course, The statement download feature on the website is useless because the format is not compatible with upload features in standard accounting packages. One of my debit cards was not properly activated and was therefore unusable; I couldnt change the PINs on either debit cards and though CA promised to resend the default PINs in case of error, these never arrived. When I used one of my debit cards online, the security code was sent to the phone of my company secretary.

I have concluded that Cater Allen is not a 'proper' bank and that if there is an opportunity for something to go wrong, it will. The problems are structural and will not go away in the forseeable future. Just look at all the negative comments which no one from Cater Allen cares to respond to. That is the true test of a company that does not deserve your business.