Banking Without Borders

In this episode, we run through the best UK savings rates for November 2026.

What we cover:

• The Budget — tax on savings interest outside an ISA rises by four percentage points from April 2027, and the Cash ISA cut is scrapped
• The Bank of England — base rate still 3.75%, inflation at 3.5%, and why fixed rates have already moved
• Switch offers — Santander's £240 is back, Barclays' ISA transfer reward, and two deadlines
• Easy access — LemFi's 5% versus Oxbury's no-cliff 4.57%, and which one actually earns more
• Small pots — Santander Edge and Cahoot
• Cash ISAs — eToro up to 4.94%, the best straight deposits, and a no-bonus set-and-forget option
• Fixed ISAs — 5.25% for five years, and why a two-year fix is the safer bet
• Fixed bonds — Afin Bank leads the table at up to 5.40%, and the one-FSCS-limit catch
• Notice accounts — still not worth it for most people
• Regular savers — which account wins at £250, £300 and £500 a month
• The Savings Stacker — five regular savers, £1,850 a month, about £783 in interest

Every account we mention is on DepositScout.com — filter by type, compare rates, set up rate alerts, and check the rate history graphs before you open anything.

eToro's 4.94% Cash ISA: https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/5wm8u1
Tembo's Home Saver: https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/yicaly

Join the new Banking Without Borders Discord community 

https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/discord

Subscribe on YouTube

https://link.technicallymoney.com/oy8e

Check out our website DepositScout.com for the latest savings rates. 

Connect with us (via LinkedIn)

Jan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-watermann/

Jonny: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-pease

Got a question or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message at [email protected]

In this episode, Jonny and Jan ask whether you should ever take out a personal loan. We checked 22 UK lenders and found advertised rates that only just over half of borrowers have to get, price lists that reward borrowing more, and banks that charge you for paying off early, plus where Revolut’s new loans fit in. Then we cover the cheaper ways to borrow, and what to do if a loan really is your only option.

• The 51% rule: why the advertised rate only has to go to just over half of accepted customers
• Band cliffs: at Monzo, borrowing £100 more means paying back £1,882 less, and at Nationwide £1 more cuts the rate by a full point
• Payment holidays that keep charging interest, and the banks that penalise you for clearing a loan early
• How Revolut’s new UK loans compare: 6.9% to 29.3% APR, no early repayment fee, and an app that makes borrowing almost too easy
• The alternatives: 0% purchase cards, balance transfer and money transfer cards, and 0% buy now, pay later
• If you must borrow: soft searches, comparing lenders and talking to your own bank
• Jonny and Jan disagree on whether loans should ever be sold for holidays

Sponsored by XTB: get five free shares of the Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap ETF when you open an account with code BWB1, deposit at least £50 and buy any share or ETF within seven days. https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/xtb

Join the new Banking Without Borders Discord community 

https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/discord

Subscribe on YouTube

https://link.technicallymoney.com/oy8e

Check out our website DepositScout.com for the latest savings rates. 

Connect with us (via LinkedIn)

Jan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-watermann/

Jonny: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-pease

Got a question or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message at [email protected]

In this episode, we rank the ten best cashback cards in the UK, debit and credit, by what each one actually pays on £1,000 a month over two years, after fees. From Chase’s 2% and Amex’s new welcome offer to Trading 212’s invested cashback and the year-two cliffs nobody mentions, they cover the catches, then reveal the two-card stack that beats any single card.

• How we ranked them: one model spender, £1,000 a month, net of fees over two years
• Why Monzo’s new Aura card missed the top ten
• NatWest Reward, Zopa Biscuit’s 3% on eating out or bills, and Lloyds Ultra (plus the hotel payment Lloyds blocked)
• Santander Rewards’ 3% and its 12-month cliff, and SumUp’s £10 monthly cap
• Amex Cashback, the Krak card from Kraken, and Amex Cashback Everyday’s 2% offer (apply by 12 January 2027)
• Chase’s 2% and our number one, the Trading 212 Card, including how to turn invested cashback back into cash
• Which card for you: eating out, investing, the big weekly shop, and the Chase + Trading 212 stack worth £436.80 over two years

Sponsored by XTB: get five free shares of the Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap ETF when you open an account with code BWB1, deposit at least £50 and buy any share or ETF within seven days. https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/xtb

Join the new Banking Without Borders Discord community 

https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/discord

Subscribe on YouTube

https://link.technicallymoney.com/oy8e

Check out our website DepositScout.com for the latest savings rates. 

Connect with us (via LinkedIn)

Jan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-watermann/

Jonny: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-pease

Got a question or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message at [email protected]

In this episode, Jonny and Jan dig into Revolut’s latest price rise, the second in three years, and whether the new perks justify paying more. We break down what Premium, Metal and Ultra now cost, why bundles like these are built on breakage, and which alternatives might suit you better.

• What’s changed: Premium up £1, Metal up £2, Ultra up £5 to £60 a month
• The new perks rated: Duolingo, Flo, Lovable Lite, eSIM data, Laundryheap and airport Fast Track
• Breakage explained, and why Perplexity Pro disappeared from the bundle
• Why Revolut could lose 1 in 9 Premium customers and still break even
• The banking hasn’t moved: same ATM limits, savings rates that trail the best easy-access deals
• The alternatives: Starling, Chase UK and Monzo for free banking, Monzo Perks vs Revolut Premium, Klarna Max vs Revolut Ultra, and where Amex Platinum fits
• Why this is likely to keep happening, and what a $115bn valuation has to do with it

Join the new Banking Without Borders Discord community 

https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/discord

Subscribe on YouTube

https://link.technicallymoney.com/oy8e

Check out our website DepositScout.com for the latest savings rates. 

Connect with us (via LinkedIn)

Jan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-watermann/

Jonny: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-pease

Got a question or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message at [email protected]

In this episode, Jonny and Jan rank the ten best paid bank accounts in the UK by what a household actually gets back: cashback and insurance, minus the fee. The winner costs £12.50 a month — and the £595-a-year Revolut Ultra didn’t make the ten.

What we cover:

• How we scored every account the same way: a model household, insurance priced at average market quotes, perks shown but not counted
• Revolut Ultra and Metal: huge subscription bundles, but travel cover only counts on trips paid with the card
• NatWest Reward Silver vs Platinum: what the extra £11 a month buys, from Europe-only to worldwide family cover
• Club Lloyds Platinum: travel cover to 80 and the £5 fee that catches people out
• Monzo Max at £19, Nationwide FlexPlus and its Fairer Share payment, and Virgin Money’s £14 family bundle
• Co-op Everyday Extra: the fee cut from £18 to £12 and the most cover per pound of any account
• Santander Edge Explorer and Chase Protect: the two accounts where the cashback pays the fee
• Chase vs Santander savers, and the switch offers worth having

Get 5 FREE shares with XTB: https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/xtb 

Terms apply. 

Join the new Banking Without Borders Discord community 

https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/discord

Subscribe on YouTube

https://link.technicallymoney.com/oy8e

Check out our website DepositScout.com for the latest savings rates. 

Connect with us (via LinkedIn)

Jan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-watermann/

Jonny: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-pease

Got a question or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message at [email protected]

In this episode, we run through the best UK savings rates for October 2026.

What we cover:

• Why fixed rates have jumped — three Bank of England members want a hike, and banks have moved first
• Switch offers — Barclays' new £300, Lloyds' £200 for three Direct Debits, and two deadlines this week
• Easy access — Starling's new 5% and why it's one to be careful with, LemFi, and the best no-cliff rate
• Cash ISAs — eToro at 4.87%, Plum and Trading 212 at 4.60%, and the set-and-forget 4.52%
• Fixed ISAs — every term from two years up now above 5%, and why Close Brothers tops the table but isn't the pick
• Fixed bonds — 5.35% for five years, and why interest paid annually matters for your tax
• Notice accounts — still paying less than easy access
• Regular savers — the 8% club is down to one, Chase's new 6.5%, and which account wins at £200, £300 and £500 a month
• The Savings Stacker — build a five-account stack and see the blended rate, live on DepositScout

Every account we mention is on DepositScout.com — filter by type, compare rates properly, run the savings and tax calculators, and check the rate history graphs before you open anything.

eToro's 4.87% Cash ISA (Market Leading)
Tembo's Home Saver

Join the new Banking Without Borders Discord community 

https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/discord

Subscribe on YouTube

https://link.technicallymoney.com/oy8e

Check out our website DepositScout.com for the latest savings rates. 

Connect with us (via LinkedIn)

Jan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-watermann/

Jonny: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-pease

Got a question or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message at [email protected]

Revolut has just had the worst month in its history: two customer data breaches, one of them a months-long con run from a hijacked Italian government email account, and a facial-recognition payments launch in the middle of it all. Jonny was caught up in one of the breaches himself, so this one's personal.

In this episode:

• How hackers used a stolen Ministry of the Interior email account and forged European Investigation Orders to get Revolut to hand over passports, selfies and home addresses
• Why the targets weren't random: blockchain analysis, the richest crypto wallets, and what a "wrench attack" is
• The victims, including the former Mt. Gox CEO who's moved his family into a hotel
• The moment Revolut corrected the hackers' paperwork for them
• Revolut's response, and why "no funds were affected" misses the point
• The DriveWealth breach: Jonny's own data, Revolut's chatbot reply, and who's actually responsible
• Pay With Smile: what it is, why it's really a merchant acquisition play, and whether there's any upside
• Why data breaches have become background noise, and what, if anything, you can do about it

Join the new Banking Without Borders Discord community 

https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/discord

Subscribe on YouTube

https://link.technicallymoney.com/oy8e

Check out our website DepositScout.com for the latest savings rates. 

Connect with us (via LinkedIn)

Jan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-watermann/

Jonny: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-pease

Got a question or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message at [email protected]

In this episode, Jan and Jonny put Monzo's new £15-a-month credit card, Aura, under the microscope — what you actually get for the fee, how much you'd need to spend or invest to break even, and whether it holds up against the cashback cards you can get for nothing.

What we discuss:

• 1% cashback on groceries, 0.5% on everything else — and which supermarkets actually count
• The break-even maths: £1,500 a month on groceries, or £3,000 elsewhere, just to cover the fee
• Apple TV, Google AI Plus and lounge passes — is the "worth £360 a year" claim real?
• Spending abroad at Mastercard's rate, and earning cashback in Portugal
• The investment fee waiver — who it helps, and why most people should ignore it
• The Flex-to-Aura funnel, and the flexed payment that earned no cashback
• The metal card: beautiful, but at 14g the lightest metal card we've weighed
• Why the interchange cap means a free version was never on the table
• Lloyds Ultra, Amex Cashback, Barclaycard Rewards and Revolut Metal — how Aura compares
• Half-baked, or just not for you? Who should actually get this card

Join the new Banking Without Borders Discord community 

https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/discord

Subscribe on YouTube

https://link.technicallymoney.com/oy8e

Check out our website DepositScout.com for the latest savings rates. 

Connect with us (via LinkedIn)

Jan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-watermann/

Jonny: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-pease

Got a question or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message at [email protected]

In this episode, Jan and Jonny dig into Revolut's conditional approval to build a bank in America — what it actually got, what's still outstanding, and whether the US is a masterstroke or the most expensive mistake in its history.

What we discuss:

• What the regulator said yes to, and the March 2028 deadline
• What Revolut already has in the US — three partner banks, a million customers, and a thin offering
• Why customers might barely notice on day one
• Chime Prime, credit cards and the interchange problem
• Nubank got there first — and has a head start Revolut doesn't
• The TSB migration disaster and what it means for moving a million accounts
• Why Monzo, Wise and bunq were all turned away this year
• Cheques, instant payments and whether America is worth the trouble
• Will Americans want a super app?
• The $300 cost of winning a US customer

Join the new Banking Without Borders Discord community 

https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/discord

Subscribe on YouTube

https://link.technicallymoney.com/oy8e

Check out our website DepositScout.com for the latest savings rates. 

Connect with us (via LinkedIn)

Jan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-watermann/

Jonny: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-pease

Got a question or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message at [email protected]

In this episode, we tell the full story of Monzo's near-death experience — and the extraordinary turnaround that followed. In July 2020, Monzo's own accounts warned there was "significant doubt" it could survive twelve months. Five years and roughly £539m of losses later, it's Britain's seventh-largest bank with £1.7bn of revenue and three consecutive years of profit. So what actually happened?

We cover:

• What a going-concern warning really means — and why the market panicked anyway
• Why a bank paid only when you spend had no shock absorber when Covid hit
• The rescue: furlough, Las Vegas, a new CEO, and raising money at the bottom
• The turnaround: deposits, lending, subscriptions — and a lot of interest rate help
• Monzo vs Revolut: fewer customers, each worth far more?
• Europe next: Ireland's launched, Spain's announced — and Jan's German verdict
• The risks: rising costs, 5,275 staff, and what happens when rates fall

Join the new Banking Without Borders Discord community 

https://link.bankingwithoutborders.co.uk/discord

Subscribe on YouTube

https://link.technicallymoney.com/oy8e

Check out our website DepositScout.com for the latest savings rates. 

Connect with us (via LinkedIn)

Jan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-watermann/

Jonny: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-pease

Got a question or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message at [email protected]