The best all-round financial products

Whether you're after a current account, credit card or savings account, John Fitzsimons can tell you which are the best all-rounders available on the market.

I'm the sort of bloke that is always striving for an easy life. Always looking to take the hassle out of my affairs, that sort of thing.

And while I always shop around for the very best products for whatever it is I'm after, I do have a soft spot for the all-rounders - the products that serve all purposes.

Take my phone. I deliberately signed up for a new mobile recently that, in addition to usual phone uses like calling people, will hold all of my music and podcasts. I know I have a perfectly good MP3 player, but if you can get one product that handles everything, why wouldn't you?

Financial products are no different. They might be great for you one month, but if circumstances change you could find yourself on the receiving end of hefty interest payments or penalty charges. So I want to look at the best all-round financial products - the jacks of all trades, that offer you a brilliant service in more ways than one.

And here are my top three.

#1 - The Halifax All in One Mastercard

Most of the time, it's good advice to have separate credit cards for separate uses.

For example, I have one card for purchases and one card for balance transfers. Why? Because of that pesky trick, negative payment hierarchy, whereby your cash will end up going towards your cheapest debt first, and you'll end up paying a heap of interest.

One way around negative payment hierarchy is to have a card which offers exactly the same period of 0% interest on both purchases and balance transfers. And the card that does this best of all is the Halifax All in One Mastercard.

You get a whole nine months free of interest, and you know that your debts will be treated exactly the same, whether they are the TV you bought last week, or the £1000 you transferred over from your old card.

If you don't want to apply for one card for purchases and another for balance transfers, but don't want to fork out on unnecessary interest payments, then you won't find a better card than the Halifax All in One.

#2 - Alliance & Leicester Premier Direct current account

There are two things most of us look for from a current account - how much interest will be paid on our money, and the size of the interest free overdraft.

The Alliance & Leicester Premier Direct Account not only gives you a whopping great £1,000 interest free overdraft for a year, but it also pays you a quite magnificent 6% in interest on your money for 12 months. And that's more than any other current account around.

So whether you are likely to be in the black or the red each month, I reckon you'll struggle to find a better account for your needs than this one from Alliance & Leicester.

However, a word of warning.

A number of lovemoney.com readers have been vociferous in their criticism of the customer service on offer from Alliance & Leicester, with all sorts of horror stories, so you have to bear  that in mind. Having said that, when we surveyed our readers on Britain's best bank back in July, 57% of you rated its customer service good or excellent, so clearly it's not all bad.

#3 ING Direct Savings Account

If you have savings you are often faced with a difficult choice. Ideally, you want to be able to get your hands on your money whenever you want to and you want a competitive, fixed rate of interest on your cash. That way, you can rest assured you'll get a good return on your savings, with no sneaky rate changes on the horizon.

Unfortunately, you usually have to put up with a variable interest rate in order to have instant access to your own money.

However, that's not the case with the brilliant ING Direct savings account. This nifty little account pays you a pretty good rate at 3.2%, guaranteed for 12 months. And even better there are absolutely no restrictions on how often you can access your money, or how big any withdrawals have to be, which is pretty ace.

Now ok, it doesn't quite pay the top rate around - Coventry Building Society operates an account paying 3.3%, but as you can only manage it by post and make minimum withdrawals of £1,000 each time, I wouldn't recommend it.

No, if you want an account that pays you a proper rate of interest on your money, without requiring you to forego it altogether for at least 12 months, then I reckon the ING account is the top of the pile.

More: Why your 3% balance transfer fee costs 11%! | Don't get stung by bank charges