HSBC might still give you a student railcard which is dead useful. They extend your overdraft by £250 every year too starting from £1000.

I got about £70 of HMV vouchers and the overdraft is the same old £1000 in the first year and extendable by £250 each year after that.

i've got a natwest one. but don't forget to activate the overdraft...i haven't yet. Its also good because you get a free student railcard that entitles you to one third off rail fares...its quite useful really

5 year railcard, ever increasing overdraft.

They're mostly all ok for customer support. I had no troubel with Natwest really.

I've never had any trouble with them.

Overdrafts are retarded. You think you're going to pay it off by the time you graduate? You're not. You think you're going to pay it off when they upgrade you to a graduate account with £5000 overdraft? You're not. You think your 4 years worth of 1/3 off train travel is going to be any consolation for the abject despair you're going to feel when you realise your bank owns you and all you have to show for it is a couple of hundred chucked up kebabs? It's not.

Don't have interest because Islam frowns upon interest or something, or at least in the classic sense, I don't really understand. I expect it works some other way.

think slightly more ethical investments from your banking.

plus you get a high overdraft (although means more to pay back at the end) of up to £2000

(although saysing that makes me sound a bit boring doesn't it?)

It's a useful safety net but it's important to remember it's not free money and, if you don't keep a track on it, you'll get a letter from your bank about 2 years after you graduate to suddenly tell you you're about to start paying interest on all that money!

I banked with Barclays but, to be honest, that was just 'cos I was already with them and they had a branch in my Uni. What they offered was decent enough compared to everyone else but this was back in 2000 so it's difficult to know what it's like now. Plus they have a tendency to do something really annoying on a regular basis.

But then they do make up for it for having really nice bank managers. The two times I've had a problem with my account (when someone cloned my card and withdrew £1, 200 of money I didn't actully have and when I urgently needed to transfer some money for my rent) they were fantastic about it.