MSE News: NatWest and RBS hike overdraft charges from today

NatWest account closed.
HSBC account opened.
Should have done it ages ago.

older_wiser wrote: »

will going into your overdraft but paying money back into the account before 1230pm cut off period for natwest and RBS still incur this overdraft fee. I use this account for some of my bills but i feed money into natwest from another bank due to better interest rates as and when bills need to be payed.

There's no 12.30pm cut off for anything. Cash paid in that keeps you within £-10 before close of day, or online before 6.00pm will prevent the charge.

older_wiser wrote: »

will going into your overdraft but paying money back into the account before 1230pm cut off period for natwest and RBS still incur this overdraft fee. I use this account for some of my bills but i feed money into natwest from another bank due to better interest rates as and when bills need to be payed.

The 12:30 limit applies only if there is not enough money in your account or within your agreed overdraft facility to pay the bill. If you have an agreed overdraft facility, that can be used to pay the bills up to that limit at any time. At NatWest you then have until 6:30PM on the same day to make an online Faster payments credit into your account to clear the overdraft before you will be charged overdraft fees or interest.

Even so, you should not be planning to do this on the day. If you have a sufficiently large overdraft facility you should set up an advance payment to arrive in your account no later than the day the bill is due to be collected. Better, do it so it arrives the day before and does not use your overdraft facility at all.

For a £100 bill a 1% interest rate is worth 0.27p per day. Multiply by the amount of the bill and interest rate you get to work out the loss to you from waiting. If you're getting 3% interest and the bill is £500 your loss is just 4p before tax from doing it the day before.

Good thing I paid my overdraft off this month with my pay. Just means it's a bit a lean month! Just means I'll use more of my HSBC one, which is my next debt to pay off! Will start using Natwest as my main account next month, but won't use the overdraft.

I have an account with RBS and upon checking my balance today, I discovered I was £5.50 over my limit. Upon checking my statement, I discovered this new £6 charge. This was the first I knew about it.

The interest charge last month on my £800 overdraft was £12. Now, with the extra £6 flat fee it's £18. A 50% increase in the space of a month.

Apart from the huge hike in price, my main gripe is that I wasn't informed in advance.

All I received was a pamphlet- 'Your copy of the general conditions'. In this, under the heading 'Charges and tax', it says- 'You must pay the charges set out in the Charges Tariff...' However, I wasn't sent the Charges Tariff, there is no information in the General Conditions about charges and no information about where I can view the charges tariff.

Surely a 50% increase in overdraft fees should be made clear to customers in advance, not buried in the small print in some tariff in an undisclosed location. Isn't there something in the banking code about this? It's almost as if the RBS want me to go over my agreed limit so they can hit me with more charges.

Had enough of the RBS now. I'm off to 1st Direct