Norwich and Peterborough Gold Light account - avoiding the low usage charge.

mhscuk

Hi all.

I currently have two current accounts, the Nationwide Flexaccount and the N&P Gold Light account.

Basically, the Nationwide account is my main one and, admittedly, I am only using the N&P account for foreign transactions (I suspect like many other account holders).

I currently have 5 separate standing orders of £5 going from the Nationwide account into the N&P account, all of which are made on the same day each month: hence, they are 5 separate transactions (which is the minimum required).

I have read, though, that N&P are changing what they class as a transaction from June onwards: "Condition 7.3 has been amended to make it clear that multiple deposits are classed as one transaction..."

Therefore, I am guessing that my current set up - of 5 separate standing orders on the same day - will now only be classified as ONE transaction.

If my interpretation is correct, how is it possible to get around this? Would one option be to make one standing order, of, say £25, into the N&P account and then make four payments (for example, £5 each) from N&P into the Nationwide account?

I would be grateful for any advice you give.

Many thanks in advance,
Stephen

GooliesOfFire

Surely they cannot treat 5 transactions on 5 different days as one transaction. No big problem here.

Any link to T&C changes?

daveybuk

Admittedly, I haven't looked into this fully but from my brief reading of the N&P site I'm taking 'transactions' to primarily mean outgoing payments. They say they want to make sure it is being used as a current account, which is fair enough I suppose.

So I'm thinking, I put in a nominal amount each month - say £50 and then use the card for 4 small transactions per month in a supermarket or similar. Job done. Takes a bit of monitoring but since Nationwide removed their benefits, haven't really had a good card for overseas travel.

I wonder how much that move cost N'wide incidentally - I no longer use any of their accounts and shifted more than 20k savings elsewhere as there was no longer any extra convenience from having it with them.

daveybuk

I was wrong. Terms and conditions state that a transaction is money in or out. And this is interesting: "if you pay in more than one cheque or a combination of cash and cheque(s) on any one occasion the combined deposit is treated as a single transaction".

So if you split the payments in across different dates, I can't see there can be any problem.

GooliesOfFire

daveybuk wrote: »

(..) since Nationwide removed their benefits, haven't really had a good card for overseas travel.

I wonder how much that move cost N'wide incidentally - I no longer use any of their accounts and shifted more than 20k savings elsewhere as there was no longer any extra convenience from having it with them.

There is still one benefit that keeps me with them - free travel insurance. Without that I would probably move somewhere else. But the thing is I still rate Nationwide higher than i.e. Lloyds TSB, Halifax, Santander, RBS etc. Banks are just too greedy and I'll rater stick with building societies.

N&P Gold is currently my main and favourite account. It offers what I need the most.

dzug1

daveybuk wrote: »

I wonder how much that move cost N'wide incidentally - I no longer use any of their accounts and shifted more than 20k savings elsewhere as there was no longer any extra convenience from having it with them.

Well if (and yes it's a big IF) they got their sums right it will have saved them money. For every profitable account such as yours they will have lost several unprofitable ones that were only there for the overseas benefits

In reality - who knows. I doubt if they would make any meaningful comment

scragend

daveybuk wrote: »

I was wrong. Terms and conditions state that a transaction is money in or out. And this is interesting: "if you pay in more than one cheque or a combination of cash and cheque(s) on any one occasion the combined deposit is treated as a single transaction".

So if you split the payments in across different dates, I can't see there can be any problem.

I would have thought that would count as a single transaction anyway. If you went into a branch and handed over three cheques of £100 each to go into your account, your statement would presumably say "chq deposit £300" or something - the three cheques wouldn't show separately. In my experience most banks would show that in that way.

Not sure how they would treat multiple Faster Payments credits on the same date from the same source. As it happens I've just opened a Gold Light account to use abroad so I'll make a few tweaks to make sure I don't get caught out.

reclusive46

Sorry to bump this thread but its still related to this.

Can you avoid this fee by having 4 1p standing orders going from my Lloyds account into this every month on the same day and then the next day having the 4p sent back to my account?

reclusive46

reclusive46 wrote: »

Sorry to bump this thread but its still related to this.

Can you avoid this fee by having 4 1p standing orders going from my Lloyds account into this every month on the same day and then the next day having the 4p sent back to my account?

Anyone have any idea?

callum9999

reclusive46 wrote: »

Anyone have any idea?

Why on earth does it matter! Can you really not spare an additional 1p going out of your account for one day? I'm personally rather well off at the moment so I just leave the 5p in there - I can live with 60p a year disappearing from my current account!

And to the person above, 5 1p standing orders going in the same day counts as 5 transactions.

jago25_98

Thanks for the tip off. I'm going to visit London for the Metro account after the Olympic games to get a spare account just in case.
I'll also change the standing orders to come in and out, different amounts on different days.
... even though I use the account all the time...