Although London-based, Barclays Bank has been around since 1690 and services just shy of 50 million customers worldwide, the online-only division was established in the US in 2003.

Barclays online deposit product suite is simple – with just an online savings account and a few standard term CDs.

In this review we will cover the variable-rate online savings account. It comes with a higher than average yield and no fees or minimum balance requirements.

You won’t be able to do all of your banking in one place with Barclays as they do not offer a checking account or ATM card, but if you’re comfortable managing your savings digitally in the interest of earning better interest, Barclays online savings account might be a good fit for you.

Barclays Online Savings Account Details + Current Rate

Barclays has only one savings account, the Barclays Online Savings. This account offers a solid APY of 3.40% currently and has no minimum deposit requirements to open the account. Once the account is open there are no minimum balance requirements to maintain to avoid fees or account closure. To get paid interest, however, you will have to maintain an average daily minimum balance of just $1.00.

Interest is compounded daily and credited monthly to your savings account or an external account.

Barclays is a member of the FDIC, so all accounts opened with them are insured up to $250,000 or $500,000 for joint accounts.

To give this offer some context, the current national average for a savings account sits at just 0.24% APY, according to FDIC data.

How to Open the Account

You’ll need a few basic things to get started with your account. Here is the information Barclays will require:

• Name
• Address
• Date of Birth
• Phone Number
• Social Security Number
• Occupation

Funding the Account

Barclays will also ask for the necessary bank information of where you will be transferring funds from. For this, you will need:

• your current bank account routing number
• your current bank account number

As with many online banks, you will need to verify two small test deposits that Barclays credits to your account before funding it. If you are making your initial deposit via check you can use $0.00 for these fields. Just be sure to mail your check in asap.

You can deposit funds via any of the following methods:

• you can set up direct deposits,
• make remote deposits through the app or website,
• transfer funds electronically through an ACH transaction,
• or mail a check to the following address: Barclays P.O. Box 4538 Carol Stream, IL 60197

Once your online savings account is open, you can easily transfer funds to other accounts and other banks for free (though you will have to wait 2 – 3 business days for these to go through). You can do this up to six times per month without incurring fees per Federal Regulation D. For each transaction after that, you’ll be charged $5.

The other fee to potentially look out for is the $5 non-sufficient funds fee, which is still significantly lower than what most banks charge. For more information on fees, continue reading below.

Fees

As mentioned, the account comes with no monthly maintenance fees and no monthly balance requirements. That said, depending on what actions you intend to take with this account, there may be some associated fees.

Barclays Online Savings Fees

Please note that Barclays does not accept wire transfers at this time.

Banking Experience

Barclays has ATMs, but you won’t be able to access them if you’re an online-only customer because the Barclays Online Savings account does not come with an ATM card.

There is also no U.S. branch network. To access your funds, you’ll have to transfer them to another account or cash out checks. And remember, Barclays does not offer a checking account at this time.

So what do US consumers have to say about this online institution?

Reviews are very mixed.

Until recently, customers have generally been satisfied with their experience with this bank. Out of 220 reviews on DepositAccounts, the bank earned a 4-star customer rating. Out of 472 customer ratings on ConsumerAffairs, the institution earned about 3.2 stars. Finally, on WalletHub, Barclays scored a 3.8 out of 24.2 thousand user reviews—overall, the bank is rated somewhere between 3 and 4 stars out of 5. (Keep in mind, however, that some reviews are of the global company and not of the online, U.S.-based retail bank alone.)

In normal environments consumers seem to be satisfied with this bank, especially for its interest rates and the ease of use of its digital platform. But in the past few weeks, amidst the panic of COVID-19 and the worrisome financial situations of so many Americans that have resulted, Barclays has received an outpouring of overwhelmingly negative reviews. 

As customers seek help in the form of mortgage relief, advice, answers, and more, Barclays has allegedly become flaky and unpredictable. Many users have reported unexpected account closures and freezes and countless customers are unable to reach customer service representatives at all. Though this might not be the typical Barclays experience, you’ll want to decide for yourself whether Barclays is a bank you can trust using this information.

As for Barclays mobile apps (US version for online savings account), they score a 3.5 out of 5 on Apple’s App Store and just a 1.8 out of 5 on Google Play. It’s worth noting that the US versions for the online savings account score much lower on usability than their UK counterparts which both score above 4.5 out of 5.