Best banks and bank accounts in UK 2025

Best banks and bank accounts

Our tables are ranked by scores, so look at the top of them for the best banks and best bank accounts.

The first table lists the banks we were able to get enough customer responses for, with a product score for their best-scoring current account.

The second table lists all the current accounts rated by our experts.

Bank reviews

Our bank reviews include our Which? Recommended Providers (WRPs), plus some banks that narrowly missed out.

First Direct - Which? Recommended Provider

• We like: customer service

First Direct has the joint-top customer score of 83% and is one of only three providers to score four stars for overall customer service. 

It's the only bank to earn five stars for ease of contacting customer services and is the highest-rated provider for telephone banking (four stars). Customers were highly satisfied with its telephone, online and app banking services, with top or joint-top ratings for all three.

It's one of the most consistent banks in the industry, having remained at or near the top of our tables for as long as we've been surveying the public.

There is often a generous cash bonus if you switch your bank account to First Direct. As with our other WRPs, you don't pay foreign debit card fees when you withdraw cash or spend money abroad. You also benefit from a generous interest-free overdraft buffer of £250, but beyond this, an overdraft is very expensive at 39.9%.

First Direct is a division of HSBC. If you have accounts with both, limit deposits to below £85,000 across both brands so your money is fully covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Monzo - Which? Recommended Provider

• We like: mobile app  

Monzo has been named a WRP for the first time with a customer score of 83%. 

It has missed out in the past due to a lack of consumer protections, but that isn't an issue any more, thanks to a mandatory fraud reimbursement requirement for UK Faster Payments. 

Monzo’s app was praised for being ‘easy to use’ and earned the full five stars. We are also impressed with the launch of three new fraud-fighting tools in 2024.

Customers praised Monzo’s simplicity, with many feeling ‘in control’ of their money. But, like Starling, it only has an average (three-star) rating for overall customer service. 

While Monzo offers fee-free spending abroad, free cash withdrawals outside of the European Economic Area are limited to £200 per 30 days for all customers. If it's not your main bank account, you pay 3% on withdrawals over £400 within both the UK and EEA. 

Starling Bank - Which? Recommended Provider

• We like: no card fees abroad

Starling has been named a WRP for five years in a row. This year, it shares the top spot with First Direct and Monzo, with an 83% score.

Customers rated both its online and mobile banking highly, telling us they value its fee-free spending abroad and budgeting tools. 

Like most banks, it fell slightly short of the mark for telephone banking, although its accounts are primarily operated via the app. It has also stopped paying 3.25% AER variable interest on balances up to £5,000 (this was scrapped from 10 February 2025), though you can open a separate Starling savings account instead. 

It also has only three stars for overall customer service, down from five stars in 2023, although this wasn't enough to stop customers saying they would recommend Starling to friends. 

Starling fined by the Financial Conduct Authority

You should know that Starling was fined £29m for failings in its financial crime systems and controls in October 2024. These failings were significant and related to more than 54,000 accounts opened for high-risk customers between September 2021 and November 2023, as well as issues with its automated screening system between 2017 and 2023. 

While we don’t condone the lax systems and processes at Starling that led to these failings, we are encouraged that the bank has since apologised and made the required improvements, including reviewing historical transactions and customer accounts. 

We are still confident that Starling provides an excellent day-to-day banking service that we recommend.

What about Chase, Nationwide and Revolut?

Chase and Nationwide narrowly missed out on becoming WRPs due to their below-average product scores for their accounts, although both were rated highly and had a string of four or five-star ratings for most elements of their services. 

Revolut was a contender, too, although we only endorse banks with strong consumer protections, and it still operates under an e-money licence here for now (it is awaiting a full banking licence in the UK). 

That means you aren't covered under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) and while e-money firms must still ringfence your funds in a segregated account, to protect it in cases of insolvency, we can only recommend the more robust, independent FSCS safety net.

We also have raised concerns about the way Revolut treats fraud victims. It has a track record of refusing to refund fraud victims and was named in more fraud complaints to both Action Fraud and the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) than any other bank in 2023. 

• Find out more: is your money safe with Revolut? 

Best banks for branch customer service

Nationwide is the highest-scoring provider with a branch network, despite missing out on becoming a Which? Recommended Provider. 

It currently has more branches than any other banking brand following thousands of closures by the big high street brands since 2015.

The building society has extended its promise to not leave any town or city until at least the start of 2028.

• Find out more: is your local bank branch closing?

The greenest banks - our Eco Providers

You might not think twice about the environmental impact of choosing one bank over another, but many UK high street banks are among the worst culprits when it comes to financing fossil fuels.

To help you choose a greener bank, we examined the environmental policies of 13 of the UK’s leading current account providers. 

Only two hold the Which? Eco Provider badge: 

• The Co-operative Bank
• Triodos Bank

Our focus was their fossil fuel policies, analysed with help from experts at non-profit research and campaigning organisation Reclaim Finance. We also combed through statements on agricultural commodities such as beef, soy, timber and palm oil. 

We considered transparency levels and whether banks had credible targets to reduce exposure to environmentally damaging sectors. And we checked whether they publish independently verified data and have signed up to commitments such as the UN-led Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), or committed to standards such as the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) and Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). 

While Nationwide was originally named an Eco Provider, since our analysis it has merged with Virgin Money so it isn't currently named an Eco Provider, pending further analysis of its eco credentials under both brands.

• Find out more: is your bank a Which? Eco Provider or a fossil fuel financier?

Best banks if you have a disability

If you're one of the 16 million people in the UK – almost one in four – with a disability, your bank should make services as accessible as possible.

Which? asked more than 2,700 disabled people from Which? Connect and the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers to share their experiences of using banking services in March 2023. 

First Direct and Nationwide achieved the highest customer scores, while Barclays and TSB were the worst-rated banks.

See our full table of scores for 12 current account providers.

Banks have a legal obligation under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments for disabled customers. You should never be asked to pay for these. Some simple steps can help make life easier for disabled customers, but which banks offer them? 

Major current account providers confirmed which accessible services they offer in May 2023:

Best student bank accounts

If you're about to go to university, already a student, or recently graduated, you can access current accounts from almost all high street banks with special perks.

To find the best account, look at these factors in order of most to least important:

1. Interest-free overdrafts - the more money you can borrow for free, the less you'll have to pay in interest. Top student accounts offer £3,000 free overdrafts by your third year.
2. Freebies - you could get free cash, railcards and other such perks. Make sure you'll use them.
3. Which? customer score - we survey customers of banks (not only students) to produce a customer score.
4. Local branches - with branches closing at record rates, check your bank has a branch you can get to.
5. Interest - some accounts will pay interest on your balance, though you could earn more with a savings account.

You may not get the maximum overdraft – banks will assess your eligibility on an individual basis based on your credit score. A handful of banks impose funding requirements to qualify for the full overdraft, or extend their overdrafts in instalments. 

Also note that you don't have to stay with the same provider – you can switch accounts in seven days using the current account switching service, though check that your new bank will match your current interest-free overdraft first. 

When you graduate, many banks will turn your student account into a graduate account, often with similar perks, though the free overdraft tends to reduce each year until it turns into a standard account.

• Find out more: how to pay off your debts

About Which?’s bank account research

Customer score

The Which? rating for customer satisfaction is based on feedback from real customers. The score is made up of a customer's overall satisfaction with the brand and how likely they are to recommend that brand to a friend.

We surveyed 4,510 members of the general public about their current accounts in August 2024. Where no star rating is given, the sample size was either too small (-) or the provider does not offer this service (n/a). 

Product score

We don't just pick Which? Recommended Providers (WRPs) on the basis of their customer score. 

We analyse dozens of elements, including rewards and benefits, fees and charges, and how you can operate the account, to calculate a product rating score.

Where banks have multiple accounts, we have shown the highest score it achieved from our analysis.

How we pick Which? Recommended Providers

A customer score of at least 70% makes a brand potentially eligible for Which? Recommended Provider status, but we'll only give this if customers rate it highly for key services and one of its main current account achieves an average or above product score.

Until October 2024 we also expected banks to be signed up to a voluntary code for compensating victims of authorised push payment (APP) scams.

But as a new mandatory code has come into effect, membership of the voluntary code is no longer a must for recommended provider status. However, we won't award it when we have concerns about how a bank is treating its customers.