Ulster Bank Reviews 

I wish I’d checked Trustpilot first. Words cannot express how truly awful their customer service/experience is. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

Tried to open a savings account. After multiple frustrating attempts I successfully provided the ID proof needed and they confirmed by email that the account was open. Online and on the app I'm told the account isn't available but no reason given so I can't transfer any money to them. This lasts for a week. Impossible to get in touch with anyone who can do anything and I'm told to call them. Guess what? I give up and take my savings somewhere else. AVOID. Next stop is to make a complaint and get them to delete my personal data.

Absolutely hopeless. Do not bank with this company. The Cora chatbot is beyond useless. 6 hours for a reply to some basic questions about depositing £50K. Don’t even think about trying to get a debit card through the website Impossible to speak to a person. How the banking ombudsman hasn’t caught up with this lot beggars belief. Nat West should be ashamed of having this sham as a sister company.

Been a week since I submitted an online application (along with ID verification as requested ) to open an easy access account with Ulster Bank. Despite separately chasing up for an update on the status of my application, I’ve heard nothing. How absolutely ridiculous in the year 2025. Quite frankly, I’m sick of being made to wait without any explanation just to become a new customer of the bank. I’m taking my money elsewhere; to a bank which possesses the rudimentary infrastructure needed to process a straightforward application within a reasonable timescale.

The worst experience I have had dealing with trying to open a savings account with Ulster bank.All requested documents were provided and checked and approved but application rejected saying : we don’t have all the information we need ! Absolutely ridiculous.People on the phone are totally useless.some of them incredibly rude,refusing to give their first name which is against the bank s rules!
I reapplied sitting in the office of a NatWest manager.
She even emailed the forms herself as well as doing it online..hoping everything was now sorted..the next day I got an email saying that my account could not be opened because they did not get all the information they needed! This is really shocking I am 69 and I have never known such incompetence from any Banks..their online Cora chat is also totally useless.
I have had a NatWest business account for over 30 years,which Ulster bank is part of..
To sum up…keep well away from them..totally unacceptable and incredibly stressful
There should be an option to click on a zero to rate them

Don't hold your breath waiting for a debit card...they say it was sent but it was never sent...their customer service is the worst I've ever experienced in my 73 years

Terrible. Made it really difficult for me to close my account. Staff kept contradicting each other and were rude. The worst banking experience I have had. Highly recommend that others avoid this bank.

I opened a New account that offered 4.50% interest , it took 2 days to open and then once I put money into the account it was the most frustrating ordeal to actually take money out as the app uses facilities biometrics which just is useless , I ended up phoning up then after complaining I decided to close the account as its not worth the hassle and stress to move money around-whoever developed the app needs to be sacked - I have accounts with Chase and Spring (Part of Paragon bank) and these are so user friendly- Im extremely Dissatisfied with Ulster bank and would definitely not recommend it to anyone

Like others, I've been trying to open a limited edition savings account but have been trapped in a Kafka-esque nightmare of having my identity documents repeatedly rejected for spurious reasons. If it's this bad before I even have an account open with them, and having read the reviews below, I think I'm going to give up.

I signed up for their recent limited edition saver, drawn in by the amazing interest rates. The process was tedious and took 48 hours to complete. I then tried to transfer my money in, but my bank blocked the transaction as it needed investigating, something I had never experienced before. Another 48 hours later, my money was finally in the saver. So far, so good.

Now, what really bugged me and made me decide to withdraw my cash and leave was the constant harassment to hand over my biometric data. Every single time I interacted with the app it pushed and pushed. It was really annoying. I then found out that unless I gave them my photo and voice recording, I’d have my transfers out restricted to, I think it was, £750 a day, which is madness, as I’d sent over a large amount of money I wanted instant access to.

Next came the pop-ups asking to share my location. Push, push, push. Again, annoying and frankly none of their business.

I decided to contact customer services regarding access to my account and the withdrawal restrictions. I couldn’t do this, and had to communicate with “Cora,” which was just rubbish. This was the worst AI service I’ve ever tried to interact with. I got nowhere.

I then submitted a GDPR request to understand my privacy rights. No email address was given, just a form to fill out, which I did. Hilariously, I got an email back this morning saying nothing more than “Request cannot be completed.” So unprofessional.

That’s when I thought, feck this, I’m out. I will not leave the bulk of my money with a company that cares so little about privacy and provides no proper customer service, just a dumb robot.

So, can you guess the irony? In order to close my account, I needed to clear my balance. To clear my balance, I had to provide both my photo and my voice, my biometric data. Otherwise, I’d have had to send myself £750 a day for the next 85 days.

So I gave them my data and withdrew my money.

Finally, I went into their privacy information, digging deep to learn about the biometric data I had handed over. That’s when I discovered that, although they’ll “happily delete” your biometric data, they still keep hold of your photo and voice for “as long as we need it.” Because apparently your photo and voice aren’t actually biometric data, they’re just used to create it. It’s like your photo and voice are the ingredients for a meal, but not the meal itself. The meal goes in the bin, the ingredients are kept in case they’re needed again, for as long as they wish.

I feel sad they now have a recording of my face and voice for no reason other than their evil ways. It’s not worth it. It really isn’t.

I simply would not trust them with my money. I can easily imagine suddenly, for some unexplained reason, not having access to it at all or being restricted in some way. It reeks of BS.

UPDATE. After requesting my account to be closed through the "close my account" option I was told I had to either go into a Natwest Branch or call customer services. Which I tried to do. I say tried because after being on hold for 48 mins I gave up! The repeating hold music slowly killed my soul.

NB. There is no wait time or indication of when the call will be answered. I've only banked with Ulster Bank /Natwest for 5 days and I hate them more than any other bank I've ever encountered. Ever.

If I could have put 0 I would of.
Frustrating and incompetent.

Absolutely shocking experience from a new customer. I signed up for Ulster Bank's new Limited Edition Saver account due to the attractive saving rate. However I sincerely regret doing so. I signed up, transferred some funds to the account, and thought all was well. Then, about a week after the account was set up, I received a text message stating that the address associated with my account had been changed. I had not actioned this change. I tried to log into my account via both the app and the website but was unable to. I then called the fraud line. It took over 30 minutes for my call to be put through to an agent, but the lag on the phone line was so large that it was impossible to communicate. The agent claimed they would call me right back, but of course they did not. I redialed and eventually got through to an agent who was able to determine that something had gone wrong on their end, and my account had been re-associated with a different customer number, without my knowledge or any notice from the bank. At this stage I informed the agent that I wished to raise a formal complaint, which was opened without issue. I await the outcome. However, in the meantime, I wish to withdraw my funds and transfer them to a more reliable, trustworthy bank. Unfortunately this is proving difficult. As a new customer, daily payment limits are artificially low (£750 for new payees and £2000 overall). To increase them, you need to enable biometric authentication on the Ulster Bank app. Maddeningly, I am not allowed to do so, as I am too new a customer seemingly. I have attempted to contact support via the app chat function, who aim to respond within FOUR HOURS. Quite frankly a joke of an institution. I will be withdrawing my funds and closing this account as soon as humanly possible. I implore anyone considering opening a Natwest, RBS or Ulster account to look elsewhere, it is not worth it.

I have just given up trying to open a new savings account. Got stuck on accessing Mitek for ID verification. Spoke to the bank twice by phone and they can't help. They direct you to useless bot and then you go around in circles.

I attempted to open an account with Ulster Bank and was met with a wall of dysfunction. After hours of trying, I was left with the clear impression that if this is how they treat prospective customers looking to deposit money, the service for existing account holders must be even worse - if that's possible. The Mitek ID verification system simply doesn't work. It stalled for hours with the message "we're trying to connect you", and no one responds to queries via their chat system. Ulster Bank's own recorded message confirms the chaos: it advises callers to stay on the line only if their need is "urgent or critical". If you ask the system on the phone line for help opening an account, it promptly ejects you, telling you that "opening an account is a self-serve journey" on the web or app - the very systems that aren't functioning. This is not just poor service it's the sign of a business that is apathetic and dismissive of their customers. I took a far less stressful journey to open my account with a different bank and did it in minutes. Avoid Ulster Bank!

Admittedly I did not read the reviews before exploring a saver account with Ulster.

Like others in here, I have going around in a loop despite using my correct credentials and receiving the text message with the activation code - NO OUTCOME -

I have contacted the customer services and used their chat box, I have been waiting since 0949 and we are 11:32. The delays is apparently because they are dealing with high volume.

Never seen a bank with such delays on their chatbot.

If you back-office is not sleek streamined, then there it raised question about whether your offer is LEGIT

After seeing the saving product offerings in the MSE I began registering for an Ulster Bank account. Not unreasonably their system stated that an activation code would be posted. When it failed to show up I accessed their infamous Cora chat bot; easily the least useful that I have ever had the displeasure of accessing (continually looping back to the same question even when it requests addition information.)

OK, FAQ's next stop: these stated that codes would EITHER be instantly sent by TXT to the registered mobile OR by post. Fine, I will ring customer support and request a TXT activation code - the support centre literally rejects non-urgent/emergency calls!!!!!!!!!

I will now be returning to MSE...

In life, if it looks to good to be true it generally is. Their interest rate obviously means that they cannot afford to pay for a half decent customer service team.

Long winded, cumbersome and bureaucratic process to open an account. I uploaded my photo and driving licence and received a message that I would be notified when they were accepted -- only to receive another request to upload them again. No email address available
NOT WORTH THE HASSLE

Wanted a new cheque book as current one I’m using is down to the last cheque. 50 minutes on the phone trying to get something as simple as this.
1) Coercion. No means of communicating for those of us who do not want to bank on line with Ulster Bank Anytime – not because we don’t understand it but because we don’t want to. All communication is for those who have been forced to use its online banking.
2) Ageism. Finally got it out of customer service that there is a phone line for those aged 60 plus who can’t do online banking. Young people if they had the choice want non online banking services.

Awful bank. Closing my account was a nightmare.Avoid.

On Friday 29/9/25 I was told by Ulster bank that as I live in England and there isn't an Ulster bank I could go into my local National Westminster and they could transfer my money to my nominated Lloyds account and then close the account.
I asked "can they see all my account details to enable them to carry out this procedure?"
The response was " YES they can see everything that I see when looking at your account."
So hoping I would finally get my money transferred I went into my local National Westminster yesterday.
Guess what MORE lies they cannot see any details.The Nat West employee helping me showed me the screen. To get my money they have to fill in a request form which I checked then signed and scanned my driving licence as proof of identity. These have been sent on their way to Ulster Bank.
I now have to wait yet more time to see if they process
this request.
I have made it quite clear I shall be raising a complaint
as I feel their service has been appalling. I was then informed they have eight weeks to resolve this matter
so if I'm still unhappy I can move onto the Financial Ombudsman.
This is my money which at the moment is in a Current account earning a pittance in interest when I have opened another account elsewhere with good rates so I will be looking for sizable compensation
I would like to say that the help I received from the staff at National Westminster was first class. Ulster bank could do with taking a leaf out of the their book