Best Bank Account article discussion

regularsaver1

yes you can have both

wertyjmnb

Seeing your latest best buy reminds me of the old warning about judging on price alone. After a series of abysmal errors I moved to Smile which has been fine. It would take a lot more than a transitory few percent to make me have anything further to do with Bank of Scotland.

NitWitson

I'm interested in switching to the Bank Of Scotland account. I understand that my direct debits, pay packet etc will be transferred to the new account. However, what about any online links that I may have created with other banks eg with my Icesave account or my ISA with Barclays? Do I need to do anything about these or will the links transfer to the new account too so I can still keep moving my money around effortlessly, without having to inform everyone about the new bank that the money will be coming out from?

west_bear

What Martin omits to mention is that:
(i) This account only pays "good" interest on the first £2500
(ii) If you normally have more than £3625 in your current account then you are better off joining LloydsTSB with Classic Plus account - which pays a lower rate of interest (4.25%) but pays it on balances upto £5000.

* There is no joining bonus at this time online. (This might be different in a branch). They also used to do a refer a friend scheme - not sure if this is still in play.

* This account is more suited to those who don't want to change every 3 months to get the joining bonus and are in credit.

Over a year if you were to have £5000 in both a BOS account and Lloyds account you would be £58 better off with LloydsTSB.

pigeonpie

Have I read this right? The BoS High Interest cheque account that Martin's email suggests is only fee free for the first 4 months. They don't then say if it's £10 per month or for how long they hold that interest rate.

Which is the best current account that is fee free? My current bank pays 0.1% net. I've been with them so long that they don't know who I am, so would like to change to a non fee account that pays decent interest. Account is joint and in credit and I want to keep the old account open (to write the odd cheque). Can pay in £1000 pcm and will transfer dds across etc. I would need it to have proper online banking.
thanks

ukdutypaid

pigeonpie wrote: »

Have I read this right? The BoS High Interest cheque account that Martin's email suggests is only fee free for the first 4 months. They don't then say if it's £10 per month or for how long they hold that interest rate......

Think there's slight confusion there. My reading is that the BoS/HBOS account for which there is a 10 pm charge is that of the Ultimate reward C/A. The one for which there is a 100 pound bonus (for switching a current C/A. e.g I understand it must involve a C/A that has current [may be old with no cash leaving account, but just sat there in existence] DD's and or SO's set up. Also it has to be through their "Dedicated Switching team". Don't be fooled by that. i.e I can do it all my self...
I made this very same mistake with a Lloyds/TSB account and missed out on a 50 quid sign up bonus. Couple of years ago this one.), is the ' High Interest Current Account', for which there isn't a monthly charge.

With respect to the "4 months being free". The only thing I can think of to which that appears to be applicable is "0% for 120 days". This intended to cover any mishaps whilst your account is being switched.

Trelitsa

I am obviously tempted with the £100 offer to switch to BoS. However given that they are linked to Halifax, I am put off - a couple of years ago, I switched to Halifax from LTSB and they made a real hash of things. At first they "forgot" to do the switching, so ultimately it seemed to take weeks to get properly set up. Also I found them a terrible bank in terms of customer service and internet banking. Therefore after a few months I went back to LTSB - luckily I didn't close my A/C there, and decided I wouldn't do it again.

I am sure this has been asked before, but it is worth just switching in order to get the £100. I think I have read a few posts where people have more than one current account. In other words, open BoS as a current account, transfer enough DDs or SOs, pay in the £1000pm for long enough to make a free £100. Are they quite strict in that all DDs etc have to be transfer in order for the A/C to be switched? Again I would like to keep LTSB as a bit of a safety net

Has anyone tried this or is it not worth the hassle.

pigeonpie

this is from the charges link on their website. I haven't rung their switching team to check but it seems that only 4 months is definitely fee free.

Charge-free period for new customers

New customers who indicate on their application form that they are transferring their main current account to a Bank of Scotland Ultimate Reward Current Account, Bank of Scotland High Interest Current Account, Bank of Scotland moneyback Current Account or Bank of Scotland Current Account will not pay any charges (except any charges for special services and cash machine charges) for the first four months after opening a Bank of Scotland Ultimate Reward Current Account, Bank of Scotland High Interest Current Account, Bank of Scotland moneyback Current Account or Bank of Scotland Current Account.

regularsaver1

this is relating to the interest free overdraft that is applied to the account for 120 days (ie 4 months) to allow for direct debits that may be switched before credits

mayb_2

Totally agree about the Halifax thing Tralitsa they never managed to make our online account available to us - after many complaints we got a huge basket of fruit. We gave them a second chance but still could not get into our account. We gave up when we had eaten all the fruit!! Nice people - shame about the bank account.