Best current account with no regular income?

elwy · 31 January 2015 at 5:24PM

I'm a housewife with no income but a fair bit of savings.

Currently I have £15,000 spread across three Lloyds Vantage accounts paying 1.5% interest - as long as I setup standing orders to keep moving the money around between them.

Are there are any current accounts out there which pay interest (even a low amount) regardless of income, or do they all require monthly DDs now?

I was just wondering if I can do better than 1.5% for this money. If I could ditch my Vantage accounts then maybe I should move the bulk of it into a fixed term ISA at about ~2% (although I don't currently pay tax anyway, of course).

colsten · 31 January 2015 at 5:32PM

DDs aren't hard to get as you will see from many other threads on here. Just set up a couple of Tesco savings accounts and you can have as many DDs as you like. Though it sounds you have got 6 DDs already if you get interest on £15K in Lloyds Vantages.

You can get over £50K into current accounts that pay 3, 4 and 5% - Lloyds, BoS, Tesco, Santander, Nationwide, TSB all have good accounts. To maximise interest, you need to spread your £15K. See threads on those accounts on the forum.

Ignore cash ISAs, they can't touch the interest rates of current accounts.

(If you are not a tax payer, you can get gross interest - see R85)

irm · 31 January 2015 at 5:33PM

3x Bank of Scotland Vantage accounts would get you 3% on 15K. There's also TSB Classic Plus accounts which give 5% on up to 2K but you can only get one sole, one joint there now. None of these options require direct debits, just standing order shuffles like you're already familiar with.

colsten · 31 January 2015 at 5:43PM

irm wrote: »

There's also TSB Classic Plus accounts which give 5% on up to 2K but you can only get one sole, one joint there now.

I would still try to apply for 2 sole accounts online - they might not enforce their new rules until tomorrow (or Monday, or later....).

irm wrote: »

None of these options require direct debits, just standing order shuffles like you're already familiar with.

there is really no reason at all why anybody should not be able to get themselves the required number of DDs.

elwy · 2 February 2015 at 10:42AM

colsten wrote: »

Though it sounds you have got 6 DDs already if you get interest on £15K in Lloyds Vantages.

No... I think you might be thinking of the Club Lloyds current account which requires two separate DDs to be paid out monthly and has a £5 fee unless you pay £1500 in.

I have the older Lloyds Vantage account which only requires £1000 to be paid into the account per month to be eligible for interest, which is easy to do with standing orders between multiple accounts. Vantage accounts are not available to new customers anymore.

I don't have any DDs setup on my current account, all our bills come out of the joint account which my husband tops up monthly.

I'm really tired of jumping through hoops for banks who make it clear they don't want passive customers like me.

Thanks both of you for the advice, I will look into the accounts you mentioned.

apt · 2 February 2015 at 10:53AM

Lloyds Vantage also requires 2 direct debits.

YorkshireBoy · 2 February 2015 at 10:54AM

elwy wrote: »

I have the older Lloyds Vantage account which only requires £1000 to be paid into the account per month to be eligible for interest

I'm not sure how you've managed that, being as the Vantage T&Cs changed some time ago now, 2nd July last year to be precise...

Changes to direct debit requirements – to continue to earn interest with Vantage, you must now pay two different direct debits from your account each calendar month.
This is in addition to;
Paying in at least £1,000 per calendar month and

Staying in credit during the monthly billing period.

No interest will be paid if any of the 3 conditions above are not met.

http://www.lloydsbank.com/current-accounts/changes-to-vantage.asp

colsten · 2 February 2015 at 11:18AM

elwy wrote: »

No... I think you might be thinking of the Club Lloyds current account which requires two separate DDs to be paid out monthly and has a £5 fee unless you pay £1500 in.

I have the older Lloyds Vantage account which only requires £1000 to be paid into the account per month to be eligible for interest, which is easy to do with standing orders between multiple accounts. Vantage accounts are not available to new customers anymore.

I was talking about Vantage accounts, and I know they are no longer available to new customers.If you want to get more than 0.5% interest in them going forward, you must add 2 DDs to each of them. Luckily DDs are easy to come by, as I mentioned earlier.

elwy · 2 February 2015 at 11:21AM

Oh my God... I didn't know or maybe I just forgot about that

May as well stick that £15,000 under my mattress instead!

I'm clearly no good at playing games with banks.

YorkshireBoy · 2 February 2015 at 11:23AM

elwy wrote: »

Oh my God... I didn't know or maybe I just forgot about that

May as well stick that £15,000 under my mattress instead!

I'm clearly no good at playing games with banks.

Your OP gave the impression you were receiving interest. Have you checked? And have you received it since last July?

But there's no need to "play games"...just open and read the letters they send you. Seem to remember I got several about these accounts last year, starting 60 days or so before the changes were implemented.

elwy · 2 February 2015 at 11:31AM

No I've been getting no interest.

I remember the letters about interest dropping to 1.5% but I don't remember the bit about needing 2 DD's. If I read it then I must have forgotten about it.

I mean these games I have to play, moving money around to pretend I have regular income, setting up fake DDs to pretend I am paying bills. And introductory offers often catch me out too when they expire. That's why I'm thinking I'd be better just sticking this money in a 5 year fixed ISA.

Best current account with no regular income?

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