Best for
App experience

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Atom bank is one of the “challenger banks”” aiming to bring banking into the present. Atom works entirely through your smartphone or tablet, making banking more accessible. However, unlike many of its competitors, Atom offers savings accounts and mortgages rather than current accounts. It also offers business loans.
Best for
App experience
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Market leading interest rate(1.25%)
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Connecting all accounts
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Ease of opening
Atom’s strengths are value for money and convenience, and it has won praise for how easy it is to use. Atom doesn’t offer any current accounts – only savings and mortgages, and business loans.
Completely through an app on your tablet or smartphone. It doesn’t even send a card, you just move your money via bank transfers.
Atom makes the app personal to you, giving the option to alter your brand, theme and the name of your account. The design focuses on the products offered by Atom, with added extras like a blog and videos about the company.
The basic app functions include:
The app also features:
You might also have concerns about the bank’s day-to-day security features – how effective is the bank at stopping fraud?
Well, it offers broadly the same security features as a traditional banking app. Instead of using the standard passcode and password combination, Atom bank uses face and voice recognition to keep your money safe. The Atom app asks for a selfie and voice clip when logging in.
Along with your personal details and address Atom also requests your existing bank details when you register.
Atom ranked top for public sentiment during lockdown among 10 banks that we tracked as part of September 2020 study that we conducted in partnership with the social data analyst BrandsEye.
You can see more on challenger vs traditional banks during lockdown in our industry report, which is free to download.
In the App Store, the Atom banking app scores 4.7 out of 5 stars, from 11,800 reviews. It gets a similar average rating over at the Google Play store, where it picks up 4.4 out of 5 stars, from 2,500 reviews.
On Trustpilot, Atom has 4.6 out of 5 stars and a rating of “Excellent”, based on over 3,700 customer reviews (updated October 2020). Positive reviews praised the app’s simplicity and ease of use, while negative feedback spotlighted technical issues and specific problems with in-app face recognition.
Pros
Cons
Atom Bank has a good range of fixed rate savings accounts, the set up is fairly quick and the rates are competitive (although not always the top of the market). You can choose how long the account lasts for and whether to get interest paid monthly or annually.
Just keep in mind that once you deposit your money, you won’t be able to get it back until the account expires – Atom has no “cooling off” period, so think carefully before opening an account. Also, it’s just fixed-rate savings accounts, no easy access accounts or regular savers available.
You can open an account with as little as £50 and still get Atom’s best rates. Together with its flexibility and easy setup, this makes Atom a competitive option for small savers who want to grow their stash without touching it for a while.
We show offers we can track - that's not every product on the market...yet. Unless we've said otherwise, products are in no particular order. The terms "best", "top", "cheap" (and variations of these) aren't ratings, though we always explain what's great about a product when we highlight it. This is subject to our terms of use. When you make major financial decisions, consider getting independent financial advice. Always consider your own circumstances when you compare products so you get what's right for you.
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How does Atom bank notify you at the end of the savings period and how easy is it to recover your invested funds?
Hi Eddy,
Thank you for your comment.
When your account is due to mature, they will notify you in advance through notifications in your Atom app, and through SMS and email. These notifications will guide you through the next steps and what your options are upon maturity. All instructions can be given and acted upon within the app to make this as easy as possible for you.
Eligible deposits in Atom bank plc (UK mainland only) are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. You are advised to contact their customer service when accessing your funds or withdrawing it. There is an option in the app as well for doing that.
Regards,
Jhezelyn