New Lloyds Vantage current account

gwyn1_2

If nothing els the offer has certainly got people thinking, I worn some of the lettering of my key board logging in and out of accounts to check various things and the various possible options.

psychic_teabag

innovate wrote: »

Not sure whether you say this might be a potential issue? It never occurred to me this could be a prob, and it hasn't been one for me to date. I have been doing

external -> H1 -> H2 -> V1 -> V2 -> V3 -> external

for ages now (on SOs). Always got my fivers / my Vantage interest ok.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it was a problem - I've been getting my interest and fivers fine. I just meant that if someone suspects that transferring entirely within Lloyds might not be invalid, going via Halifax may not be any better.

Like YorkshireBoy, I only do cross-transfers since that may stand up to scrutiny slightly better than inter-account transfers. (I try to avoid attracting any attention from Halifax in case the rumours are true that they close excess reward accounts when they notice them.)

psychic_teabag

gwyn1 wrote: »

If nothing els the offer has certainly got people thinking,

The thing it got me wondering was how much profit there is to be made from Direct Debits, what with Lloyds requiring them for extra interest, and Santander offering cashback on them. (Just got round to setting up a 123 account - bit slow off the mark on that one.)

YorkshireBoy

psychic_teabag wrote: »

The thing it got me wondering was how much profit there is to be made from Direct Debits, what with Lloyds requiring them for extra interest, and Santander offering cashback on them.

I don't think it's about making profit on DDs per se. They stipulate DDs for a couple of reasons (that immediately spring to my mind)...

1. To deter the (MSE) money grabbers (simply switching salary and/or a couple of SOs), and

2. To encourage 'main account' banking, ie customer poaching.

gwyn1_2

Another point to consider is that if Lloyds allow customers have three accounts and assuming that a number of people have £6000 in each (£18000) per person the bank will have a large amount of money to 'play with'. It could be to there advantage to allow transfers between accounts or risk losing a substantial amount of money deposited with them.

YorkshireBoy

gwyn1 wrote: »

Another point to consider is that if Lloyds allow customers have three accounts and assuming that a number of people have £6000 in each (£18000) per person the bank will have a large amount of money to 'play with'. It could be to there advantage to allow transfers between accounts or risk losing a substantial amount of money deposited with them.

I can't believe they've simply forgotten to add a condition (and the necessary software) added by other Banks (ie Nationwide and Santander) that "internal transfers do not count".

So you may be right...it must have been a concious decision to allow it, and that's a little surprising on 2 counts...

1. They obviously took a beating the last time they paid 4% AER...hence the cut to 3% and the cut to £5K max, and

2. They must be able to obtain funds on the open market cheaper than 4%...what's the LIBOR at the moment?

gwyn1_2

Just a shot in the dark this but I assume that many people did not notice the rate and top level had changed so Lloyds would have made some on that, and of course Lloyds will now probably increase the customer base (at least for a short time) and will hope that they can sell other services and the odd fee for an account holder not being on the ball and doing everything quite correctly.

psychic_teabag

gwyn1 wrote: »

Another point to consider is that if Lloyds allow customers have three accounts and assuming that a number of people have £6000 in each (£18000) per person the bank will have a large amount of money to 'play with'.

But if they just wanted lots of dosh to play with, why not offer a savings account with an equally good rate ? Or why is the cap £6k now when it was £7k previously ?

gwyn1_2

I don't know perhaps £7000 cost them too much, in relation to a savings account, I would think that a current account would provide them with more opportunity to make additional monies. I have a headache now, spending too much time wondering about something that may not happen - passes the time away though. Now where did I put those paracetamol.


Please note - other painkillers are available.

Steve_xx

I think the reason is that when the account used to be 4% there were still quite a number of savings accounts offering that amount and so it wasn't too attractive. Then when rates started to fall it became very attractive so the customer base will have risen and many, like me will have opened multiple accounts It was at that point that they lowered the rate.