Any negatives to the £5 halifax account?

pinkdalek

kevin52 wrote: »

I predict that at some point in the future they will downgrade this account, and stop paying £5 pm to existing account holders. And then they will announce a new account with a different incentive for new customers.

Actually when the Reward account was launched it was availble to both new and existing current account customers, as was the high interest current account that they used to do prior to this one.

They used to do the "moneyback" current account which gave cashback on debit card purchases, again when this account was withdrawn these customers were transferred to the Reward account which paid them £5 per month.

So historically the Halifax appear to treat their existing customers well and do not offer one trick pony accounts for brand new customers only. In fact if you have a current account with them you can gain Rewards on other products, check out their Halifax Rewards.

andy_allblack

many thanks for the replies, appreciate answers.

pjread

I guess it's a marketing ploy mostly.

Sadly it's being relatively successful as the service has been pretty good IMO, the only stumbling block is no incentive to actually keep any real balance in there so for the minute Lloyds Vantage is still in the lead. But perhaps not for long.

pvt

Wife and I have 3 account between us - works just fine.

There was discussion on another thread about the fiver a month being treated as interest/dividend income, and thus taxable. It is paid by Halifax as already taxed, but if you're a higher rate taxpayer you technically have to declare it on your return and pay the extra higher rate tax on it.

I guess when someone's giving you £180 a year for your loyalty, paying a few coppers in extra tax is a nice problem to have.

pvt

poggs

As I've just found out you will probably get allocated the new sort code 11-49-43.

This Sort code cannot accept or send faster payments. Which means it'll take 8 days to send and then send back your £1000.

I have contacted Halifax about this in the last 10 minutes and got a cryptic answer about it being to dissuade people for simply sending the £1000 and then taking it straight back out again!

Also I am unable to set up 2 direct debits on it. One is barclaycard and the the other is my council tax payment. Both say the sort code is invalid. I have managed to set up another 6 DD's just fine though.

noh

poggs wrote: »

As I've just found out you will probably get allocated the new sort code 11-49-43.

This Sort code cannot accept or send faster payments. Which means it'll take 8 days to send and then send back your £1000.

I have contacted Halifax about this in the last 10 minutes and got a cryptic answer about it being to dissuade people for simply sending the £1000 and then taking it straight back out again!

Also I am unable to set up 2 direct debits on it. One is barclaycard and the the other is my council tax payment. Both say the sort code is invalid. I have managed to set up another 6 DD's just fine though.

Seems a strange thing to do.
What use is a current account that doesn't send or receive faster payments?
All payment accounts will have to be able to send payments within 1 day by January 2012.
To get round the restriction now all you need to do is open another Halifax account that does send and accept FP and use that to do an instant internal transfer to/from the Reward current account.

I think there is something peculiar with the setup of your account.
Reward current accounts usually have a sort code associated with your local branch.
The 11-49-43 sort code appears to belong to "Halifax Specialist Banking"

psychopathbabble

I've just opened my second reward account and it has my usual sort code on it... so should be capable of faster payments?

Empty_pockets

I've been given 11-00-99.

8 days in is possible but I need to check my dates carefully before transfering.

noh

Empty_pockets wrote: »

I've been given 11-00-99.

8 days in is possible but I need to check my dates carefully before transfering.

11-00-99 is the sort code of the Halifax branch in Brighouse.
It is enabled for faster payments in and out.

Check here:-
http://www.ukpayments.org.uk/sort_code_checker/

Empty_pockets

Thats great, thanks.

Transfered £100 to start with earlier today to 'start' the account.

That was succesful within about an hour so I've just transfered a further £900 to the halifax account.

Am I right in thinking once it shows on my online account I can transfer it out again or do I have to leave it in overnight.

Thanks for you help, much appreciated.