I'm really impressed by smile and the cooperative bank's ethics - and am happy to know my money's not supporting an oppressive regime, investing in the arms trade or ruining the environment. They also back worker's rights; fair trade; even sustainable timber and fish!
I got my smile current account a few months ago and am really happy on the whole. In the beginning I had a few problems logging on but gave smile a quick call and they were really helpful and friendly - although they do keep asking me if I want to upgrade to a 'smile more' account (where I think you pay £10 them a month and presumably get some benefits for your money).
It's really easy to use too - I also got a smile savings account soon after and I can transfer money between the two in seconds.
On my old Lloyds TSB online account it used to show me how much money was available, including card transactions which hadn't fully gone through, which was really useful if you were worried about going into overdraft. Unfortunately the smile card doesn't do that but maybe I should just keep track of my finances better!
In terms of paying in cheques, it's not so easy. There's so few Cooperative banks around, which can be a bit annoying. To be fair, you can pay the cheques in via the Post Office but after one cheque I paid in went missing enroute to smile I'm not to keen to try this again.
According to coop's website, 96% of the electricity they use comes from renewable sources, they also recycle plastic cups and turn wastepaper into recycled toilet roll. So they're not just talking the talk, which is great to hear.
The wider Cooperative Group of course includes the fair trade-loving cooperative shops, but I didn't realise until recently that it also includes an electrical shop and travel service - complete with LCD TVs and flights to France - which isn't particularly green. Although on the electrical website they do at least offer eco-friendly removal and disposal of packaging and old appliances.
So all in all I'm very impressed and am proud to hand over my smile card at the shop counter!
Quality
Value
Ethics
Green
