Too Many Bank Accounts?

AdrenalineJunkie

Hello,

I am slowly getting rid of my old credit cards and accounts but wondering if i can go too far?

I have Halifax Reward Account (18 months), Santander (20 months), First Direct (2 months)

Opened the Halifax for its £5pm reward (£1k in, £1k out) and now thats coming to an end i was planning on closing it

I opened santander for their c£150 cashback and now switched to First Direct for their £125 cashback

I was looking to go down to one account (FD) but as it's only been open 2 months is this going to affect my credit rating?

Hominu

What happens if HSBC's network goes down? Considering the amount of outages last year, I wouldn't say it was rare.

I'd say keep at least 2 accounts, and keep a token amount in one bank for emergency cash.

innovate

Agree with Hominu, 2 readily accessible current accounts, and same for credit cards, with different financial organisations, will make a sensible and reasonable protection against IT meltdowns or other bank problems.

If you can trust yourself and be certain that you can manage your funds across several accounts, there is no reason for not having a lot of current accounts. Several people on here have more than a dozen.

guesswho2000

AdrenalineJunkie wrote: »

Opened the Halifax for its £5pm reward (£1k in, £1k out) and now thats coming to an end i was planning on closing it

For info, the £5 reward isn't coming to an end at all, they're just changing the criteria to receive it. Pay in £750 and have 2x DDs paid (open 2 savings accounts which take deposit by DD, £2.50 into each?).

AdrenalineJunkie

Sorry i meant coming to an end as i do not use it as my main account and don't plan to

It seems you were right about keeping two accounts with different banks as this morning this happened to Natwest lol

innovate

AdrenalineJunkie wrote: »

Sorry i meant coming to an end as i do not use it as my main account and don't plan to

Just in case someone told you you need to use Halifax as your "main" account in order to get the monthly fivers: this is not the case. There is no definition of "main current account", and it certainly isn't mentioned in the T&Cs. From May, you need to pay in £750 monthly, and you have to have 2 DDs that pay monthly and are for different companies. Until then, it's just £1K monthly deposit to qualify. Huge long thread on this board.

pmduk

If you're going to have accounts with different banks, which I'd certainly recommend, ensure that they're with entirely different groups, eg not First Direct and HSBC, or RBS and Natwest.

AdrenalineJunkie

Yea i know theres not classification as main account but do not fancy splitting my direct debits up between accounts and making sure i had left the right amount of money in there for sack of £5pm

Thank you all for your help

innovate

you don't have to. It's all explained in the thread pertaining to the Halifax T&C changes.

Gromitt

AdrenalineJunkie wrote: »

Yea i know theres not classification as main account but do not fancy splitting my direct debits up between accounts and making sure i had left the right amount of money in there for sack of £5pm

No need to, I always leave about £100 in my Halifax account for emergencies and have a £4 and a £1 direct debit setup to savings accounts grab the free £5, so thanks to Halifax for the changes - I don't even have to login to transfer the £5 anywhere else.

At the end of the year, I have a £60 bonus for Christmas shopping