Reports
The numbers behind UK business banking
Each report is built from the same dataset as the comparison: every provider's published tariff, read on a known date. The method is stated, the figures link to their sources, and each report is available as a PDF. Journalists and researchers are welcome to quote them with attribution.
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September 2026
Cash is where the money goes: what UK business accounts charge to pay in notes and coins
Twenty-five of the 31 UK business account plans in the Bank Solutions dataset publish what they charge to pay in cash; on those plans, £1,000 a month in four deposits costs between £0 and £21 a month, median £10, and 12 of the 25 accept cash only through the Post Office.
- 25 of the 31 plans (from 13 of the 16 providers) publish cash-deposit terms; the 6 that do not - Allica Bank's Business Rewards Account, ANNA Money's four plans and Wise Business - mention no cash service at all on the pages read.
- Paying in £1,000 a month in four deposits costs between £0 and £21 a month across the 25 plans, with a median of £10 and a mean of £10.56; the three £0 results come from a published £1,000 monthly allowance and the £21 from HSBC's 1.50% of value plus £1.50 per credit.
- Classifying each of the 25 plans by which of the four recorded charge types is present in its tariff, 10 charge per £100 deposited, 7 charge a percentage of the value, 15 charge a fee per deposit and 4 apply a minimum per deposit; 7 plans combine a value-based charge with a per-deposit charge, so the four counts sum to more than 25.
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September 2026
The real cost of 'free' business banking
Fourteen of the 31 UK business account plans in the Bank Solutions dataset publish no monthly fee; priced against three stated monthly usage patterns, the ones that can be priced cost between £0 and £649.20 a year, and cash handling rather than the monthly fee is the component that separates them.
- 14 of the 31 plans (11 bank accounts and 3 e-money accounts) publish a £0 ongoing monthly fee, a different thing from the 11 plans that publish an introductory free period; only the two NatWest plans appear in both groups.
- For a digital sole trader making 15 payments out and 10 in a month, the ten £0 plans that can be priced cost between £0 and £105 a year - seven of the ten cost £0, so the median is £0 - while the 16 fee-charging plans cost between £102 and £839.88.
- For a shop paying in £2,000 of cash over eight deposits and four cheques a month, the seven £0 plans that can be priced cost £96 to £649.20 a year (median £432) against £274.80 to £1,113.48 (median £602.40) for the nine fee-charging plans, and the two NatWest £0 plans cost more than eight of those nine.
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Edition 1 - September 2026
The UK Business Banking Fee Index - September 2026
A like-for-like record of the monthly fees, per-payment charges, cash-handling costs and free periods published for 31 UK business current account plans by 16 providers, read on 5 September 2026 and measured against three fixed patterns of usage.
- 14 of the 31 plans publish no monthly fee; the median across all 31 is £7 a month, the median among the plans that charge a fee is £10, and the highest published fee is £69.99.
- 29 plans publish a charge for a UK electronic payment out and 17 of those charge nothing; where a charge applies the median is 32.5p and the highest is 35p.
- Paying in £1,000 of cash a month in four deposits costs between £0 and £21 a month across the 25 plans that publish cash terms, with a median of £10; 6 plans publish no cash terms at all.
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September 2026
Free periods and the switcher's calendar: what UK business account offers are really worth
Eleven of the 31 UK business account plans in the Bank Solutions dataset publish a free period; priced at the monthly fee that follows, the nine that charge one are worth between £9 and £210, with a median of £119.88.
- 11 of the 31 plans (35.5%), from 10 of the 16 providers, publish a free period; 10 are bank accounts and one is an e-money account.
- Five of the 11 free periods last 12 months; the rest are 1 month (two plans), 24 months (two), 25 months and 30 months, giving a median of 12 months and a mean of 15.
- Nine of the 11 plans charge a monthly fee once the period ends, from £6.50 to £22.90 (+VAT); multiplied by the length of the period, the waived fee is worth £9 to £210, median £119.88.
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September 2026
FSCS or safeguarded? Where UK small-business money actually sits
Of the 31 UK business account plans in the Bank Solutions dataset, 22 are deposit accounts at FSCS-protected banks and 9 are e-money products whose customers rely on safeguarding rather than compensation - this report sets out what each regime does, in the regulators' and providers' own words.
- Of the 31 UK business account plans from 16 providers in the Bank Solutions dataset (checked 5 September 2026), 22 are offered by 13 banks and 9 by three e-money institutions - ANNA Money, Tide and Wise Business.
- All 22 bank plans publish FSCS protection wording; 5 of the 9 e-money plans (ANNA Money and Wise Business) publish that funds are not FSCS-protected, and the other 4 (Tide) depend on whether the member holds a ClearBank-powered account or a legacy PrePay Technologies e-money account.
- The FSCS deposit limit is £120,000 per eligible person per bank, building society or credit union, up from £85,000 on 1 December 2025; 20 of the 31 plans' own protection wording states the £120,000 figure, while Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest and Starling link to an FSCS information sheet or marker without stating it.
Using these reports
Quote freely with a link to the report page. Figures are as published by providers on the dates stated; the dataset and every change to it are public at tariff changes. Press enquiries: editor@banksolutions.uk.