I recently switched from Abbey (Santander) to Britannia Building Society for a very good reason.

Since December, you cannot withdraw cash less than 30 quid at the counter (no big deal) but you can't withdraw a cheque for less than 1000 quid (I am using a sh*t computer with US Keyboard layout so can't find the "pound" symbol).

As most of my cheques are in the region of 300 quid (it's a saving account) that's no use to me as I don't want to have to take several hundred pounds in cash out to transfer to a bank so that I can pay by cheque.

What's more, you can't get more than 500 cash or less than 1000 cheque, so if you want 700 without giving them advance notice, you're screwed.

Last, but definitely by no means least, on the day I found out about this, I wanted to take a cheque for a couple of hundred and it took nearly 15 minutes while the two counter staff served only three customers ahead of me. It took 2 and a half minutes to do my cheque, and when I asked why they were changing the rules, she told me - with a straight face, I might add- that it was to reduce queues and waiting times.

I am also sick of every financial institution asking if I want to have all my accouns with them. The recent global financial crisis has proved that nowhere is safe, and I'd rather not have all my eggs in one basket, thank you very much.

I recently switched from Lloyds to Smile, based on Oli's recommendation.

I'm enjoying the experience so far, although being an Internet-only bank I'm keeping my Lloyds account as my means of transferring money over to Smile.