Barclays

My Experience with Barclays

Last Tuesday morning I was standing in the rain outside a coffee shop on High Street, realising I had no idea if I had enough money to pay for my oat latte without going overdrawn. I pulled out my iPhone 15 Pro, opened the Barclays app, and had my balance on screen before the barista even asked for my order. It just worked. That moment alone justified the download for me. Before this app, I was stuck logging into online banking on my laptop every single time, which meant I’d often go days without checking my accounts because I’m not home much. Now I check it whenever I need to, usually a couple of times a week. The app hasn’t crashed or frozen on me once in the month I’ve had it. That’s more than I can say for some other banking apps I’ve tried in the past. I can see my transaction history, my standing orders, and my direct debits all in one place. It’s straightforward. Nothing fancy, but I don’t need fancy. I need reliable. For my daily use, it’s been reliable.

Features Worth Noting

The main things I actually use are the balance check and the transaction list. Both load fast. I also like that I can view my statements right there instead of waiting for a PDF to download and then opening it elsewhere. The app lets you set up savings goals too, though I haven’t touched that feature much. What surprised me was the secure messaging option. I haven’t needed to use it for support, but knowing I can send a message straight from the app if something goes wrong gives me some peace of mind. There’s a feature called Barclays Blue Rewards that I see in the app but haven’t bothered with. It seems to want you to pay in a certain amount each month and set up direct debits, and I just don’t have the energy to optimise that. Another thing I noticed is that you can freeze your debit card instantly if you lose it, which frankly everyone should have by now. The fingerprint login works well too, though I’d prefer Face ID only on the bank app. It does both. The app also shows you upcoming payments, which has saved me from forgetting a direct debit twice already.

What Needs Work

Honestly the biggest frustration is how often it logs you out. I get that banks are paranoid about security, but if I’m checking my balance for five seconds, having to re-authenticate after ten minutes of inactivity is annoying. I’d like a setting to extend that session time when I’m on my home network. Also, the search function for transactions is not great. I tried to find a specific payment to a shop from two weeks ago by typing the shop name in the search bar, and it showed me nothing. I had to scroll through the whole list manually. That feels like it should work better. Another thing is that the app doesn’t show pending transactions clearly. Sometimes I see a transaction that says “pending” but it doesn’t tell me the exact amount or when it’ll clear. That leaves me guessing a bit. For an app from a major bank in 2024, that feels outdated. I also wish they had a dark mode. I use dark mode on my phone for everything, and switching to a white banking screen at night is jarring.

Pricing

The app itself is free to download and use. I haven’t been charged anything extra for using it. Barclays doesn’t seem to tack on fees for mobile banking, which I expected because nearly every bank does that now. If you sign up for their Blue Rewards program there are monthly fees, like £4 or something, but that’s optional and not part of the app. I haven’t enabled that. So as far as I’m concerned, the app costs me nothing. That’s the baseline expectation for a banking app in 2024, so I’m not going to praise it for being free, but I also won’t complain about hidden charges because I haven’t seen any. Just watch out for any premium features they might try to upsell you on later.

Developer Notes

The app is made by Barclays Services Limited. I haven’t contacted support yet, so I can’t vouch for how helpful they are. What I can say is that the app updates fairly regularly, which is a good sign. I’ve had a couple of updates in the past month, and each time it seems slightly smoother. The app doesn’t feel abandoned, which is more than I can say for some banking apps out there. I do wish the developer would add a few quality-of-life features like better transaction search and an option for longer session timeouts. The current version I’m using is stable. No bugs I’ve noticed. I read through some other reviews on the App Store before downloading, and the main complaints were about the login process and the app feeling slow on older devices. I haven’t experienced slowness on my iPhone 15 Pro, but I can see how that could be a problem for people with older phones. The developer seems to respond to some reviews, which is decent.

Security & Privacy

This is the part I was most skeptical about. I always check what permissions an app asks for before I hit download. The Barclays app asks for access to your camera (for cheque deposits), notifications, and Face ID. That’s it. No location access, no contacts, no photo library reading. That honestly surprised me. A lot of banking apps try to grab location data, supposedly for fraud detection, but Barclays doesn’t seem to do that. I checked their privacy policy page in the app. It says they collect information about your device, like your IP address and operating system, which is standard for security. They also mention they may share data with third parties for “analytics,” but I couldn’t find a clear list of who those third parties are. That bothers me a bit. I wish they were more transparent about exactly what data gets sent where. They do say they don’t sell your personal information, which is good. For a banking app, the privacy practices seem reasonable. I’d give it a B. Not perfect, but much better than I expected.