Tandem

Tandem is a UK banking brand that offers savings accounts and cash ISAs, home improvement loans, personal loans, motor finance and mortgages. It is known as an app-based bank: savings are opened and managed through its app, with Open Banking used for quick identity checks and fast transfers between a current account and Tandem savings accounts¹. The brand trades as Tandem and was previously known as Harrods Bank¹. The company behind it was incorporated in 1969 and its status is active².

Tandem is an app-first bank: it has no branch network, and its products are managed online and through its app. It is best known for savings, where customers hold fixed savings accounts and cash ISAs, and for lending, particularly home improvement loans that fund work on a property. Its complaints data also shows activity in personal loans, motor finance and first charge mortgages, which gives a picture of the full range of what it sells³.

What Tandem offers: savings, loans and mortgages

Tandem's product range falls into three areas: savings, lending and mortgages. On the savings side it offers savings accounts and cash ISAs, opened and managed through its app, which uses Open Banking for quick identity verification and fast transfers between a current account and Tandem savings accounts⁴. In lending, it offers home improvement loans, personal loans and motor finance. In mortgages, it offers fixed-rate mortgages, which lock in an interest rate for a set term, typically 2 to 5 years, and it describes itself as a specialist mortgage lender for people with unique financial situations or specific borrowing needs¹.

In practice this means Tandem operates in three broad markets. In savings, it takes deposits into savings accounts and cash ISAs. In loans, it lends for personal purposes and for home improvements, and its motor finance arm lends for cars. In mortgages, its home loans business lends against property. Its complaints data, which every firm in this market must publish, confirms all three areas are active: in the first half of 2026 it recorded complaints in savings, home improvement and personal loans, and first charge mortgages³.

The brand sits alongside many other banks and lenders in the UK market. If you are weighing Tandem against other options, the banks and building societies and lenders and card issuers directories list the other firms you can compare it with, and the section guides for savings, loans and mortgages explain how each product type works.

Tandem savings accounts and ISAs

Tandem's savings business takes deposits into savings accounts and cash ISAs. A cash ISA is a wrapper rather than a product in itself: the four types of ISA available in the UK are cash ISAs, stocks and shares ISAs, innovative finance ISAs and lifetime ISAs, and a cash ISA holds deposits rather than investments⁵. Tandem's own complaints data shows its savings customers hold both standard savings deposits and cash ISAs, since it reports separately on savings and on ISA transfer processes³.

One part of the savings experience is worth understanding before you open an ISA: transfers in from other providers. Tandem's published complaints data for the first half of 2026 shows that the single largest cause of savings complaints, 53 of them, was the ISA transfer process³. Transferring an ISA between providers is an administrative process that involves the old and new provider working together, and delays in it are a common source of frustration across the market, not only at Tandem. If you are moving an ISA, the guide to ISAs explains how transfers work and what to check, including that a transfer should be done between providers rather than by withdrawing the money yourself.

For context on the wider market, the Financial Ombudsman Service received 1,294 new complaints about deposits and savings accounts, excluding cash ISAs, across the whole industry in 2025/26⁶, and 58 complaints about savings certificates or bonds in the first quarter of 2026/27⁷. Tandem's own savings complaint volumes, covered later in this page, are small against those industry-wide figures.

Home improvement loans and personal loans from Tandem

Tandem lends in two main consumer credit areas: home improvement loans and personal loans. A home improvement loan is a form of borrowing that must be repaid over time, usually with interest, and Tandem's version is offered exclusively through its trusted partners¹. Tandem describes it as a way to finance upgrades that could lower energy consumption and enhance the comfort of a home, while noting that savings are not guaranteed and depend on factors such as the property, energy usage and the improvements chosen¹. A personal loan can be used for a wide range of purposes, and lenders record the reason for the loan when it is taken out: in one Financial Ombudsman case study, for example, the reason for a loan was recorded as "home improvements"⁸.

Tandem's complaints data gives a sense of what goes wrong with these loans in practice. In the first half of 2026, the largest single cause of complaints in its home improvement and personal loans business was Section 75 claims about the quality of goods or workmanship, 143 complaints, followed by 15 complaints about irresponsible lending³. Section 75 is the legal protection that can make a lender jointly responsible when something you bought on credit is faulty, misdescribed or not delivered, and it is often used when building work paid for with a loan goes wrong. The guide to consumer protection explains how Section 75 works and when it applies.

Irresponsible lending complaints, by contrast, are about whether the lender should have offered the loan at all: whether it checked properly that the borrower could afford the repayments. The Financial Ombudsman Service can look at both kinds of complaint, and its published data shows these are industry-wide issues, with 1,904 new complaints about personal loans across all lenders in the first quarter of 2025/26⁹ and 1,930 in the third quarter of the same year¹⁰.

If you are considering borrowing, the loans guide explains how personal loans work, what lenders check before they lend, and what happens if you cannot keep up repayments. Tandem's own website carries its current rates and terms, which change over time and are not reproduced here.

Tandem mortgages and who provides them

Tandem's mortgage lending sits within its wider home loans business, and its fixed-rate mortgages lock in an interest rate for a specified term, typically 2 to 5 years¹. A first charge mortgage is the standard mortgage used to buy a home: the lender takes a first legal charge over the property, meaning it has the first claim on it if the home is repossessed and sold. Tandem's complaints data confirms it lends in this market, recording two complaints about first charge mortgages in the first half of 2026³.

The same data shows the scale of the two lending businesses side by side. In the first half of 2026, the bank recorded 0.8 complaints per 1,000 customers in its home improvement and personal loans business and 1.2 per 1,000 in first charge mortgages³. In the 2025 calendar year, the separate home loans business recorded 20.6 complaints per 1,000 customers in home finance, and the motor finance business closed 1,289 credit-related complaints³. These figures are the firms' own published data, drawn from the complaints information they must provide.

For most people, a mortgage is arranged through a broker or directly with a lender, and the process of applying, being assessed and receiving an offer is the same whichever lender you use. The mortgages and buying a home guides explain how mortgages work, what lenders look at when deciding whether to lend, and what to check before committing. Tandem's own website sets out its current mortgage products and terms.

How to deal with Tandem

Tandem has no branches, so contact is by email, phone and app. For complaints, the published address is complaints@tandem.co.uk³. Behind that single address, different teams handle different products, and their opening hours differ:

All teams are closed at weekends and on bank holidays, so if you raise something on a Friday afternoon you may not hear back until the following week. When you contact a complaints team, it helps to include your account or loan reference, the dates of what happened, and what outcome you are looking for. Keep copies of everything you send and everything you receive, because if the complaint is later escalated to the Financial Ombudsman Service, that correspondence is the evidence the ombudsman will work from.

For routine matters that are not complaints, such as questions about a savings account or a payment, the app and the contact routes on Tandem's own website are the place to start. A complaint is the right route when something has gone wrong and you want it put right, or when you have lost money and want it returned.

How to open a Tandem account

Opening a bank account in the UK usually means filling in an application form, in a branch, online or sometimes over the phone, and providing proof of identity including your full name, date of birth and address¹¹. With an app-first bank like Tandem, the application is done online or in the app, and the identity checks are carried out electronically against those same details. You will typically need a valid form of identification and proof of where you live, and the lender will also run credit checks for loans, mortgages and finance agreements.

Not everyone passes those checks, and there are established routes if you cannot. Some banks have special schemes for people with no fixed address and work with a local homeless charity to help confirm identity¹². If you are in financial difficulty and worried that a bank you owe money to could take payments from your account, independent guidance is to set up an account with a bank you do not have any existing debt with, and for a basic account, to make sure it has no credit facility and to pay your income into it¹². Basic bank accounts do not have to have any fees¹¹, and the guide to current accounts explains what to look for when choosing one.

For savings accounts and ISAs, the opening process is similar: identity checks, and for an ISA a declaration that you are eligible for the ISA rules. If you are transferring an ISA in from another provider, given that the transfer process is the largest single cause of Tandem's savings complaints³, it is worth checking how long the transfer is expected to take and keeping a record of when you requested it.

Tandem's complaints record: loans, savings and mortgages

Complaints data gives a direct view of where a bank's customers experience problems, and Tandem publishes its figures every half year. For the first half of 2026, the bank reported the following³:

The loans business sees by far the most complaints in absolute terms, and the main causes are Section 75 claims about the quality of goods or workmanship on home improvement loans, 143 complaints, and irresponsible lending on personal loans, 15 complaints³. In savings, the main cause is the ISA transfer process, with 53 complaints³. The upheld rate, the share of complaints Tandem resolved in the customer's favour, was 48% for loans, 50% for mortgages and 54% for savings³.

Speed of resolution varies by business. In the first half of 2026, 17% of loan complaints were closed within 3 days and 95% within 8 weeks; in savings, 22% were closed within 3 days and 100% within 8 weeks; no mortgage complaints were closed within 3 days³. For the 2025 calendar year, the separate lending businesses reported different patterns: the motor finance business closed 15% of credit-related complaints within 3 days and 78% within 8 weeks, while the home loans business closed 63% of home finance complaints within 8 weeks³.

These figures are the firm's own published data and are not independently audited, but firms are required to report them accurately. They are most useful as a picture of where problems arise: with Tandem, complaints cluster around home improvement lending and ISA transfers rather than day-to-day savings. For comparison, the Financial Ombudsman Service received 1,066 new complaints about first charge mortgages across the whole market in the first quarter of 2025/26⁹, so Tandem's two mortgage complaints in half a year are a very small share of that market's activity.

How to complain to Tandem

The process for complaining starts with Tandem itself. You complain to Tandem first, by emailing complaints@tandem.co.uk or contacting the relevant team³. Tandem states that for product or service-related complaints it will strive to address them within 8 weeks of receiving your initial complaint³.

The deadlines behind that promise are set out in the complaint handling rules that apply across UK financial services. For most complaints, a firm must send a written response within 8 weeks of receiving the complaint¹³. For complaints about payment services and electronic money, the deadlines are tighter: in normal circumstances the firm must respond within 15 business days, and in exceptional circumstances it must send a holding response within 15 business days and a final response within 35 business days¹³. The practical distinction matters: if your complaint is about a payment from your account, you can expect a faster response than the 8-week outer limit.

When Tandem finishes its investigation it sends a final response letter. If it does not send one within eight weeks, or you are unhappy with the response, you can bring the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service¹⁵. Tandem's own complaints page tells customers to contact the ombudsman within 6 months of receiving the final response letter³, so that letter is the trigger and the clock for escalation. The ombudsman can help with complaints about bank accounts and bank cards, insurance, and problems with loans¹⁶, which covers the full range of Tandem's products. The service is free to consumers.

Is your money safe with Tandem?

Tandem is a UK bank, and the brand trades under that name today, though it was previously known as Harrods Bank¹. Its permissions include accepting deposits, entering into regulated credit agreements as a lender and entering into regulated mortgage contracts as a lender¹. It appears on the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority list of banks incorporated in the UK authorised to accept deposits, dated 1 September 2026⁴, which is the list that confirms a firm is a deposit-taking bank rather than a non-bank lender. The company behind the brand was incorporated in 1969, its company number is 00955491 and its status is active².

What this means in practice is that Tandem is a UK bank, supervised by the UK's prudential and conduct regulators, and its customers have access to the standard protections that come with that, including the right to take unresolved complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service free of charge. The consumer protection guide explains the protections that apply across UK financial services, including how deposits with UK banks are protected and where those protections stop.

Two practical points are worth adding. First, only deal with Tandem through its official website and app: the public register of financial firms records its website address, and you can check any firm's details there yourself using its reference number, 204479¹. Second, if you believe you have been scammed, contact your bank immediately¹⁷. Guidance on scams is consistent on this: use secure payment methods and avoid paying by bank transfer¹⁸, because paying by credit card for items over £100, by debit card or by PayPal gives you more protection than a bank transfer¹⁹. The scams and fraud guide sets out the warning signs and what to do if money has already left your account.