Citibank Access Current Account Withdrawn

chexum

In hindsight it's no suprise that they withdrawn the no-fee current accounts, there were starting to ruin many of the services that have come with it, like weaseling out of the fee-free SEPA transfers for EUR accounts, making SWITCH transfers phone only (I suppose to make sure they can tell that they now charge for it). They still have the highest free overdraft limit (£500), but their requirements are the highest now value-wise: monthly £1800 deposited and 2 direct debits.

For some of these of services (switchable-currency debit card, free overdraft, a number of free SEPA and SWITCH transfers - NOT), even £8 is something that I would briefly consider; for purely overdraft usage, it's not the best, depending on your usage:
- though Barclays' £300 is £6.5pm is cheaper in both sense
- for £8 Halifax Reward may get £2500 for 13 days (£1 per day minus the £5 reward)

I would be inclined to game their system by cycling £1800, if only they would have a working faster payments infrastructure - I have no intention to wait 5 days for a BACS payment to complete (in and out ). The other annoyance is their choice of sort code, which is not recognised by most online direct debit originators - I can't even imagine what sort of trouble will it be if they are forced to change it...

If they sort out the faster payments issue (which is weird as their are the one of the original founding members of the scheme), the Plus account may become useful to me - fortunately I rarely need USD check processing, I can wait to see what they look like in December.

Stompa

chexum wrote: »

The other annoyance is their choice of sort code, which is not recognised by most online direct debit originators

Hmmm, FWIW I've never had a problem with that.

MiserlyMartin

Bad news then on this. As said, there is no advantage or reason to have these accounts anymore and without the access account which is fee free there is no point in the foreign currency deposit accounts as moving money out becomes uneconomic and expensive. Does anyone know of alternatives?

System

The access accounts have not been closed (or charged for) as of yet.
The product is simply closed to new applicants - they may simply leave it like that.

MiserlyMartin wrote: »

Bad news then on this. As said, there is no advantage or reason to have these accounts anymore and without the access account which is fee free there is no point in the foreign currency deposit accounts as moving money out becomes uneconomic and expensive. Does anyone know of alternatives?

Edwardia

chexum wrote: »

The other annoyance is their choice of sort code, which is not recognised by most online direct debit originators

Direct Debits with Citibank are hit and miss. Some companies seem to handle straight away others reject. M&S Money was adamant OH had sort code wrong and he was giving them Deutsche's.

Not just that though, the account numbers are 1 digit longer and this causes probs when a receiving organisation/bank knocks the first digit off.

However, on the plus side, OH talks to humans at Citi who sort it with the organisation if it happens.