A+L savings account...

ali68

My partner and I wish to open a joint savings account that will be used for home improvments ect. There will be an intitial deposit and probably a regular DD set up and also any extra cash for that month will also go into the account.

The A+L seems to offer the best interest rate at the moment but when applying you have to have a joint current account, this we do not have, they then advise we would have to make two separate applications.

I'm a little confused as to how two separate applications will tie us into one account surely that will give us two seperate accounts.

Can anybody enlighten me?

grumbler

ali68 wrote:

My partner and I wish to open a joint savings account that will be used for home improvments ect. ...but when applying you have to have a joint current account, this we do not have, they then advise we would have to make two separate applications.

I'm a little confused as to how two separate applications will tie us into one account surely that will give us two seperate accounts.

Am I right that you need joint account? If yes, there is no problem to apply for it.
The first page of online application has has title 'First applicants details' and you can make a choice between single and joint application. What is your problem?

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Paul_Varjak

The A&L does offer the best interest rate at the moment and there are no 'catches'.

The reason why the linked current account has to be in the same names as the A&L savings account is because you can set up a facility on the A&L savings account to take money from the linked account.

If you make individual applications you will have two A&L savings accounts. If that is not what you want, I would suggest also opening up an A&L joint current account. When you want to make a home improvement purchase you can transfer money from A&L joint savings to A&L joint current instantaneously (if you do it via Internet). This then separates your 'joint home improvements financial affairs' from your other, apparently separate, financial affairs.

Although money leaving the A&L savings account can only go into the linked joint account (A&L joint current account in this example) you can, in fact, pay money into the A&L joint savings account from any other current account irrespective of who owns that current account.

If, for instance, if either or both of you had current accounts with Halifax, you could use their online banking service to set up Bill payments to transfer money to the A&L savings account. You could do this on a regular and/or ad hoc basis. You have to quote the sort code and account number for the main A&L receiving account and, as a reference, your A&L savings account number.

ali68

My 'problem' as you so gracefully put it "Grumbler" is we dont have a joint current account which seems to be a requirement for this savings acount therefore cannot apply jointly without seperate applications it would seem.

Thanks Paul for the cmprehensive answer.

grumbler

My apologises!
Now I see that I did can understand the problem from the original post!