Getting a business bank account
I'm typically pretty brand loyal as a consumer. I buy Nike trainers, Levi jeans, M&S t-shirts, Under Armour sports wear and Timberland shoes. When I find something I like, I typically stick with it. Business banking is different. I tend to go where the best deal is or more typically, who is making the best technology advancements.
Royal Bank of Scotland
My first business bank account as a Sole Trader was with Royal Bank of Scotland. I worked with Royal Bank of Scotland and so, my salary needed to be paid into one of their accounts (never really understood why). The account did have some great benefits and so when it came to needing a business account, I never really considered using anything else.
HSBC
When I setup GHIJK to begin with, I opted for HSBC at the time. This was due to them offering a US Dollar account alongside my general current account. My first contract with Under Armour, they were paying me via PayPal. I dread to think how much I paid in PayPal fees over that project, but I just accepted it as the cost of doing business. With a US Dollar account, I could get paid from anyone in the US and move the money when needed.
Barclays
I never really gave the bank a second thought until FreeAgent - my accounting software of choice - introduced bank feeds. Prior to this, at the start of a month, I'd upload a CSV export from my HSBC account into FreeAgent. However, this new FreeAgent feature would allow your bank account to feed automatically into FreeAgent each day, giving valuable insight into cashflow.
This feature is now widely available to all bank customers due to Open Banking - but at the time, was only available to customers of Barclays because they had an agreement in place that offered FreeAgent for free for the first year if you had a Barclays business account.
Not paying for FreeAgent wasn't the appeal - I had access to FreeAgent via my accountant. The bank feeds were the attraction, and so I opened a Barclays account to become the primary account, continuing with HSBC purely for that US Dollar account.
TransferWise (now just Wise)
That US Dollar account made it easy to get paid from clients in the US, but it didn't solve me needing to pay subcontractors I'd hired for pieces of work here and there. That's where Wise came in. Wise allows you to have multiple currency accounts as well as send money overseas at the mid-market rate...effectively a better deal than the high street banks will give you.
I've never used Wise as a primary account, it's just been a middleman tool for sending and receiving money overseas.
Starling Bank
Mobile banking apps Starling and Monzo were starting to gain traction in the UK. As a personal customer, I had accounts with both. It's great having access to your financial data at the drop of a hat, not to mention getting alerts when there's a fraudulent transaction attempt on your card but just being able to see categorised spending breakdowns over time was massive.
As much as Monzo had me as a personal consumer, Starling launched their business banking offering in 2018, whereas Monzo didn't come to market until 2020. And so, attracted by the shiny new tech, Starling Bank replaced Barclays.
Banking overview
As you can see, there's no such thing as the perfect bank, in my case it's been the case of "perfect for right now". Your mileage may vary. There's absolutely nothing to stop you having accounts with multiple banks, other than things can become quite complex with multiple account details on an invoice.
Shop around for the best deals available to you and look for the features that look most attractive to how you might use banking.