How does Biscuit compare to high street bank accounts?
Across our website and marketing, you'll see claims about how Biscuit from Zopa can offer greater financial value than traditional high street banks like Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, and NatWest. We're proud of what we offer—but just as importantly, we're committed to being transparent about how we back up those claims. This page explains the methodology behind our comparison and the data we used.
Who did we compare and why?
We focused our research on the UK’s “Big Four” banks: HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest, and Barclays. These are the largest and most recognisable names in UK banking, making them the most relevant benchmarks for many customers considering a new bank account.
How did we ensure a fair comparison?
To keep things fair and consistent (think: apples to apples), our research compared the main free-to-open current account and, where available, regular saver account of each bank.
Here’s the accounts we compared:
| Bank | Accounts Included |
| Zopa | Zopa Account, Regular Saver pot |
| HSBC | HSBC Bank Account, HSBC Regular Saver |
| Lloyds | Classic Account, Monthly Saver |
| NatWest | Everyday Current Account, Digital Regular Saver |
| Barclays | Barclays Bank Account,*Barclays does not offer a Regular Saver account |
What bank account features did we assess?
Our research focused on features that directly impact a customer’s potential value from their bank:
Cost to open and maintain accounts
Interest on current account balances
Interest on regular saver accounts
Cashback on bills paid via Direct Debit
Cashback at certain retailers
Cashback on card spending
Switching bonus
These are the features and rates we found in our research:
Zopa | HSBC | Lloyds | NatWest | Barclays | |
Cost to open and maintain | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free |
Interest on current account balances (AER) | 2% With no monthly or yearly limits | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
Interest on regular saver accounts (AER) | 7.10% (variable) With a monthly deposit limit of £300 | 5.00% (fixed) With a monthly deposit limit of £250 | 5.25% With a monthly deposit limit of £250 | 5.50% (variable) With a monthly deposit limit of £150 | Not available |
Cashback on billspaid via Direct Debit | 2% Up to £1500 Direct Debits a year | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
Cashback at certain retailers | 0%
| 0%
| Up to 15% on a small number of retailers. Varies per customer. | 0%
| 0%
|
Cashback on card spending | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
Switching bonus | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
The data above was collected on Tuesday 3rd June 2025.
What does this mean in real terms?
To bring these differences to life, we calculated the potential annual financial value a customer could get from each bank, using the following assumptions:
Current account balance: £4,460*
Minimum yearly household bills paid by Direct Debit: £1,500**
Customers maximise their regular saver deposit limit every month.
Any variable rates remain the same for the next 12 months.
No tax needs to be paid on interest earned (although we note that tax treatment depends on a customer’s individual circumstances).
Based on these assumptions, here’s how the value from each accounts compares over a year (rounded down to the nearest pound):
Bank | Estimated annual value |
Zopa | £256 |
HSBC | £80 |
Lloyds | £84 |
NatWest | £53 |
Barclays | £0 |
* Average current account balance — Bank of England data show that, as of March 2025, UK households are leaving a total of £305 billion in current accounts that pay no interest. Using ONS's latest population estimate of 68,265,200 in mid-2023, that’s an average balance of £4,460 per person.
** Minimum yearly Direct Debits — Pay.UK data show that Direct Debits pulled roughly £1.5 trillion out of UK bank accounts in 2024. Spread across the population that’s £21,600 per person each year. This amount exceeds the £1,500 yearly limit used in our research calculations.