Is Santander a worthy bank to keep my money or are there better options?

Made a student Santander bank account a while back (over 3 years ago), they updated it now, should I close the account and look for something better?

Are banks near colleges good (thats how I got my Santander account)? I´d like to talk about all of this stuff, case I think Mainstream banks are worse than the Indie/more national alternatives but I want people with experience to tell me about those, so I´d like to hear your thoughts on this.

 

Thank you any bank recommendations? Or building Society recs?

I was thinking about CTT and Revolut right now, and I dont want to take risks in casino feature banks like the one Graham Stephan is running.

btw do you think bitcoin capped already? I wanted to invest badly in it, but in the current conditions I´m skeptic now.

My problem with "saving" my money is that it´ll still be devalued by inflation and I want to figure out a way of yearly beating inflation and bank expenses, so I have devellopped a interest for mutual fund investing, however I´ll need a bank account to start mutual fund investing right?

Dont get me wrong, I watched Dave Ramsay´s show, I wont be stupid with my money, save some first, then build up another sum of money to invest with (baby step thing).

 

So I can get a free card if it´s Starling or Monzo?

 

How about the passive bank fees? Which is more expensive? I havent got a job secured yet, so I´m curious.

 

Update, Checked out my Santander account some more, apparently I have til I´m 26 (which will happen in 1,5 years), to keep enjoying my card benefits, I´ve also noticed I can tie the Santander bank account to Revolut and start investing right off the bat, is this recommended? I´m going to check if my term account is ok, but depending on the result I could just as well do this, to get Revolut, I have a android emulator on my PC already.

Here´s the thing though, should I do this before, or after I ensure a job? I´ve heard bad things about Revolut Money transfer times that doesnt directly involve euros so I think I´m safe with using it but I want to hear more on it, from more experienced guys.´

And there´s also the Starling-Revolut linking option, I dont know what to do, should I pick Santander and link it and then I´m 26 close the account and do a Revolut link with Starling instead? Case I wanna invest, but I also want safe money I can withdraw from ATMs and use at cash registers at malls.

I live in portugal btw.

 

Aditional update fixed the situation with Santander, I´m worried about deposits on Starling from the country where I live in, how can I do deposits outside of physical cash to Starling? Do I like use a ATM to send money to the Starling Account as if I´m paying the bills or something?