Can anyone recommend a competent bank?

My old friend Claire, who died a couple of years ago some days short of her 99th birthday, kindly remembered me in her will.  A cheque from her lawyers reached me in the new year’s first post.  I’d already enquired of my bank what the drill was for paying in a cheque expressed in US dollars.  Since my nearest branch is a good 45 minutes’ drive away, they told me to pay it in at the nearest Post Office branch, which I duly did.  I kept a watch on my account balance, and when the amount hadn’t appeared after over a week, I asked them to investigate.  Yesterday’s email said they had received it, but couldn’t pay it in because of the account number being eight zeros.  The bounced cheque came back today, and the eight-zeros story is utter nonsense.  Oh, and the covering letter said they couldn’t process it because it was in foreign currency, if you please!  I have an account with another bank that has a local branch, and have paid in a foreign cheque before (at vast expense) so will visit on Monday.

I haven’t been lucky with banks of late.  I sacked RBS because of the bank’s irresponsible behaviour.  I moved to the Co-op bank, and sacked them when they came perilously close to going bust.  They had closed their local branch by then.  Next, a stroll down the road to TSB, which appeared to have decent ethical credentials.  I only discovered that their branch was closing from a notice on their door.  The nearest branch, I was told, is in the next but one county.  Oh no it isn’t: a poke around t’internet shows that they have a ‘pop-up’ branch in a local community centre.  After I sold up in France, the Banque Postale took forever to close my account and transfer the balance, and only did so when I wrote to Monsieur le Directeur Général.

So it’s time  to change yet again.  Martyn’s bank seems to do the routine stuff pretty well, even if they did keep sending replacement cards to our old address for some years.  And that bank is closing dozens of branches, though ours isn’t currently on the list.  It’s tempting to keep the money under the mattress.