Free Gift to Students from the Banks?

You can tell times are really bad when the best freebie a bank can offer its new student customers is something as unglamorous as insurance – or, even worse, nothing at all.
We had especially high hopes for HSBC. After a couple of more recent heady years giving away packs of free CDs and MP3 players, HSBC was doing all right on the freebie front. But this year, its best offer is two years’ free travel insurance – assuming, that is, that students will somehow be able to afford two years’ worth of holidays in between all that partying, building up student debt and studying, of course.

If banks were students, then Abbey would like to think it’s the sensible one that stays in, goes to the library, meets deadlines and gets early nights every night. Abbey says it has resolutely refused to give away freebies with its student accounts.
‘We find students would much rather have a good overdraft rate or a good rate of interest on balances in credit. The spokeswoman says: ‘Students would much rather have cash in their account than a really bad-quality MP3 player anyway.’
Meanwhile, at Barclays, a spokesman assures us that it still ‘believes in offering students fun’. ‘Six free cinema tickets,’ says the website. ‘We have always looked to provide incentives we know students will find practical and beneficial,’ a spokeswoman for the bank told us. Students use it and it appears to be worthwhile.’

Read the full storey in the guardian