Halifax Reward

YorkshireBoy

Natbag wrote: »

So am I right in thinking I'll be charged £1 a day for having my overdraft?

Not for having the facility...just when you use it.

And an additional £5 per day for every day I am over it?

I believe (without going and reading the press release/T&C's) that the £5 daily fee replaces the £1 daily fee (small consolation I know!).

Also, am I best sticking with this account, switching account or switching bank as when I'm only bringing in £117 a week it seems a lot to be paying for banking.

If you decide to stay, increase the overdraft facility (to avoid the occasional £5 fee), and try and manage your way out of the overdraft by earning more/spending less/budgeting better.

How many days a month do you use the facility?

LongTermLurker wrote:

Another way of looking at it is that the account is costing you 10.68% of your income - that's a lot imo.

The £117 is a weekly income (and the £12.50 a monthly fee), but the cost is still too high at around 2.5% of monthly income.

LongTermLurker

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

How many days a month do you use the facility?The £117 is a weekly income (and the £12.50 a monthly fee), but the cost is still too high at around 2.5% of monthly income.

I knew you'd correct me

Grade_A_Reject

BobRock wrote: »

Let us get this straight: if you are £1 into your ARRANGED overdraft, you will pay £1 each day!

<snip>

Sure enough, people can vote with their feet, but how can some still find sympathy for the UK banks is beyond me...

That's true but if you're only a pound overdrawn then surely the problem is not that you are strapped for cash but more a case of not tracking what you are spending.

There are commercial (MS Money) and free (GNUcash) software packages (to name just 2) that allow you to track your spending and project what you will have left in your account once all your regular payments have come out.

Look at it another way....spend everything you earn and take the account down to zero each month and get paid £5 for doing it. That doesn't sound bad to me.

saucy77

I am so glad I found this thread... I think what Halifax are doing is criminal to it's loyal customers.

I have been with them for best part of 18 years, and have a arranged OD of 5k.
I'm currently sitting above the 2500 bracket and when the new changes come into effect, i'm looking at a hefty £60 a month min charge until I clear this balance.

I'm not too bothered about the cashback side of things, it was just an added bonus for having the account, however when the charges jump up an extra £40 (was paying less than £20 in interest a month) this has worried me.
Surely banks are there to help us manage our money, although I have done a bad job of it so far ( I hold my hands up to that). I know we all compain about interest, but I would rather do that than pay the amount they are seeking after 6th Feb.

I'm not sure i'm going down the right road even now, but I am seeking to take my current account elsewhere in hope they will take on my OD otherwise I might have to reload the credit card I just cleared (and hoped to bin - due to the rates).

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.

Natbag

Thanks for the replies. I've had the reward account so long, I never considered switching to a different one while on maternity leave. I'm probably not using any of the rewards at the moment, true.
Think I need to go into branch and get some advice about what will be best for me while on such a reduced wage.

Mikeyorks

saucy77 wrote: »

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.

Read the other threads on the Reward account. But quickly - get Halifax to move you to a standard current account - in order you don't get moved onto the new Reward account. More likely to keep the o/d that way? Then use the time lapse that gives you (Halifax propose to move all their current accounts to this sort of o/d charging sometime in 2009) - to work out how to sort out your finances. Living in your overdraft - rather than your life - isn't going to be comfortable as other Banks will likely start to move in the same direction?

opinions4u

Natbag wrote: »

I'm so confused by this, can anyone help please?
I have an Ultimate Reward current account with an agreed £280 overdraft. I'm on maternity leave and money is tight so I'm using the overdraft every month at the moment and have incurred the occasional charge for accidentally going over it at the end of the month.

There is, at this stage, no change to your account. So you should be paying no interest and no daily fee as long as you remain within your overdraft limit. Manage your finances more closely to avoid those charges for exceeding the limit though, as you do your internal credit rating no good at all.

So am I right in thinking I'll be charged £1 a day for having my overdraft? And an additional £5 per day for every day I am over it? And is this on top of the £12.50 account fee? I won't get the £5 interest as I won't be putting £1,000 a month in.

You will continue to pay the £12.50. Don't worry about £1 and £5 charges as they don't apply to your account.

Also, am I best sticking with this account, switching account or switching bank as when I'm only bringing in £117 a week it seems a lot to be paying for banking.

If you use the insurance package that the £12.50 pays for, stick with what you've got. If not, change your account to their 'normal' account before 6th Feb. You will end up with interest charges if you do this.

opinions4u

saucy77 wrote: »

I am so glad I found this thread... I think what Halifax are doing is criminal to it's loyal customers.

The old Moneyback account charge 2/3rds less interest than their other accounts. They have been exceptionally generous with your interest rate for far too long, cross-subsidised by their other current account customers who pay around the 19.5% mark.

I have been with them for best part of 18 years, and have a arranged OD of 5k.
I'm currently sitting above the 2500 bracket and when the new changes come into effect, i'm looking at a hefty £60 a month min charge until I clear this balance.

So that's around 14% a year then. Not bad for a flexible, revolving credit facility. Most banks charge pretty close to £1000 a year for a similar facility.

Surely banks are there to help us manage our money

No. They are there to make money for their shareholders. This means finding the happy medium between attracting customers and generating profits. They have been lending to you at a loss leading rate for far too long.

I'm not sure i'm going down the right road even now, but I am seeking to take my current account elsewhere in hope they will take on my OD

They might. But will you get £5k matched? Or will their rate be lower than 14%? Probably not for the long term.

otherwise I might have to reload the credit card I just cleared (and hoped to bin - due to the rates).

Well, check out the rates carefully as they might not provide the value you want.

If your overdraft was £3,000, it would be a poor deal. At £5,000, it is actually not bad value for money.

You could consolidate this debt in to an unsecured loan if you can find a good enough rate. 0% credit cards are another alternative.

One final thought. The overdraft facility is renewable annually and repayable on demand.

If they don't renew it, what will you do?

LongTermLurker

Surely banks are there to help us manage our money

No. They are there to make money for their shareholders.

Damn you beat me to it! O4U is correct, banks aren't charities and you're not paying for advice. It's a hard reality.

Independent Financial Advisors are there to help you manage your money, or if you're really hitting the ground hard, Citizens Advice, but definitely not banks - they're there to give you somewhere to hold your money and lend to you for a fee.

cheggers

Changed my account over yesterday from Moneyback to High Interest Current account, they transfered my cashback of £100 there and then.

Just need to work on getting rid of my overdraft now, going from 6.9% to 15.9% AER on my overdraft.

When I asked if £1.00 a day fee on overdrafts was coming in accross the board, the fella at the Halifax said "who know's"

The end of an era, still I milked them for £100 a year every year on the cashback, just by transferring £1,000 to a betting site then transferring it back seconds later to earn £10 a time . Then did it 9 more times over the next 2 weeks. What a loop hole.:beer: :beer: :beer: