Want to know more about Communion? Let’s dive in.

How Communion works

When you first get started, you’ll need to sign up, it takes 10 minutes. This includes the usual questions, like your name, email, phone number, bank details and randomly adding a photo of yourself (say 'cheese!’).

Once you've signed up, the ‘program’ begins, and you’ll need to save £1 per day, for the first ten days (after that you can add/remove money). 

And during these 10 days you're supposed to watch one video per day, which will help educate you on the benefits of saving money.

The idea is that you get used to saving regularly, even if the amounts are small. Which is great advice. Your money will grow consistently over time, helped by compound interest.

Compound interest is key to building savings over time (that’s where your money makes more money, and this snowballs over and over).

Imagine you saved £100, and made 5% per year, you’d have made £5 after one year, but the next year, that £5 makes you interest too – so the following year, you’ll make £5.25. This happens over and over, turning small sums into potentially very large sums over time.

TikTok videos

The app also links to TikTok and YouTube, with selected videos relating to money.

Some of these are helpful, and some seem a bit off topic, for example, there's a man playing with poker chips and a ramp. There's better information out there to help you save, like Nuts About Money!

Money guides

You can also chat to their team through the app, and they will try and answer any money related questions you might have.

However, we should point out they’re not qualified financial advisors. They simply ‘guide’ you in the right direction to building a plan to help you save.

The savings account

F.U.nd

Communion's idea is that if you use them, you can build a financial buffer (cash savings, also called a "fund" or "F.U.nd"). Meaning you can say "f*** you" to the world and the people holding you back.

It's a bit different to normal savings account advertising – love it or hate it, we'll leave this one to you.

Note: just to avoid confusion, there’s no special features that make this different to any other cash savings account. It’s just the name for it.

Easy access

The savings account is easy access, which is great, and it means you can get your money back whenever you like, it’s not ‘locked in’ for a set number of months or years (which is called a fixed term), and you don’t need to give ‘notice’ to get your money back either (a set number of days or months to wait before you receive your money after requesting a withdrawal).

If you’re keen to save within an easy access account (recommended), learn more with our guide to the best easy access savings accounts.

Increasing your savings rate

When you first start with Communion, your savings rate is currently 3.66%, which is about average. You can get much higher savings rates these days. However, you can increase this if you invite your friends…

You can invite up to 10 friends, and with each friend who signs up and uses the app you’ll both get a boost of 0.20%.

So, ultimately you could get a savings rate of 5.66% which is great!

It’s not an ISA

Communion is a standard savings account, it’s not an ISA (Instant Savings Account), which is a tax-free way of saving cash. That means if you have lots of savings and are making lots of interest, you might have to pay tax on it.

The amount you’ll pay will depend on your income (e.g. salary), and is the same rate as your salary (you’ll pay Income Tax).

However, you could earn up to £1,000 tax-free (in interest), which is called your Personal Savings Allowance…

You’ll get the whole £1,000 allowance if you’re a basic rate taxpayer (earning less than £50,270 per year, and paying 20%), and a £500 allowance if you’re a higher rate taxpayer (earning over £50,270, and paying 40% tax), and no allowance if you pay additional rate tax (over £125,140, paying 45% tax). You’ll pay tax on anything above your allowance.

If you’re keen to learn more, check out our guide to Cash ISAs. 

For long term saving, we also highly recommend using a Stocks and Shares ISA, where your money is invested and could earn you much more over time than cash savings (don’t worry, the experts can handle things). Here’s our best Stocks and Shares ISAs to learn more, or check out Moneyfarm¹, which is easy to use, low cost, and a great track record.

Communion fees

Communion is currently free to use, but based on our research there are plans to introduce a monthly subscription fee at some point.

Customer support

The customer support is based in the app, it's the same team behind the ‘money guide’ advice.

Unfortunately, you can’t pick up the phone and speak to someone, and you can’t email in.

However this is a help centre, where you can find common questions and answers yourself.

Is Communion safe?

Your money isn't actually held with Communion itself, it’s held with Santander, which is a large reputable bank.

Communion is just a nice way of depositing your money into a Santander account, who will then provide the interest.

That means your money is protected even if Communion were to go out of business. Your money would be safe in a Santander account.

And on top of that, with Santander, your money is protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). That means in the unlikely event that Santander were to go out of business, you could get up to £85,000 back in compensation.

Communion pros and cons

Here’s a quick recap and the pros and cons of Communion:

Pros

• Currently free to use
• Potentially get 5.66% savings rate (starts at 3.66%)
• Build knowledge about saving
• Speak to a money guide for help

Cons

• Basic rate isn't great – 3.66%
• Have to invite friends to increase the savings rate
• Savings aren’t in an ISA (tax-free savings account)
• Only available on iPhone

Communion customer reviews

As Communion is new, there’s only a couple of reviews.

Our thoughts

Communion is a new app with a lot of potential. Instead of just saying “Add money here”, they are trying to educate people about money which is great, and something we’re trying to do here at Nuts About Money too.

However, there’s currently not much to help you, just a few of their own videos and some TikTok videos that seem a bit gimmicky. Time will tell if they can create good educational videos. 

If you don’t want to wait, check out Moneyfarm¹ and get personal advice from their experts for free when you sign up.

With Moneyfarm, your money will be invested (a great way to grow your money over time). If this isn't for you and you want to stick to saving cash, Communion currently offers a rate of 3.66% (although this can go higher if you recommend friends).

For an easy access savings account we recommend Chip¹, Wise¹ and Kroo¹, they all have great saving rates, and great apps overall – Chip can even help you save more automatically. Find out more with our best easy access savings accounts.

Nuts About Money tip: getting the best interest rate is super important when saving for the long-term due to compound interest. As mentioned above, this is where the interest you make starts to make interest itself, and this snowballs over the years.

Having said that, our main advice is to invest your money over time using a sensible investment strategy (let the experts handle everything), rather than saving cash.

You can do this easily with great investment apps such as Moneyfarm¹ – where experts handle the investments, it’s easy to use, has low fees and expert help on hand. Read our Moneyfarm review to learn more. Or, check out InvestEngine¹, which is great too, and you can start with just £25. Here’s our InvestEngine review to learn more.

Overall, we’re not massive fans of Communion. There’s far better options for growing your money and saving cash – our favourite is Chip¹ (here’s our Chip review). Or, check out the best savings accounts to learn more and view all the top options.