Co-op Bank Scraps Paid For Current Accounts

Anthorn

"All three of its deals — Privilege, Privilege Premier and smilemore (offered through its Smile internet bank) — will be scrapped on the same day that the Financial Services Authority (FSA) introduces new rules to stamp out potential mis-selling."
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-2292605/Co-operative-Bank-scraps-paid-current-accounts.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Doesn't affect existing account holders so anyone who wants a smilemore or Priviliege account should get a move on.

suburbanwifey

I turned down the Smilemore, it was not worth the cost of the monthly fee. I can see why the FSA is changing the rules and Smile are scrapping them. Waste of money for customer, big money earner for Smile.

simax

If you want the features, how is it a waste of money?

pmduk

The features are rarely worth the money paid for them. And very few people need the exact combination of features included in an account.

BugsyBrowne

pmduk wrote: »

The features are rarely worth the money paid for them. And very few people need the exact combination of features included in an account.

I think the Flex plus is superb for a Tenner,Oh wrong thread this is the Co-op added value accounts thread.

benjus

I've just opened a Privilege Premier account. It seemed to me to be the best combination of deals on the market (even considering that as an employee of another bank, I would get a discount on their packaged account). So instead of paying 5.50/month for European breakdown cover and about 2/month to extend the Nationwide travel insurance worldwide, I now pay 13/month, but this also gives insurance for our 2 smartphones, which seems much cheaper than the insurance offered by the networks.

BugsyBrowne

benjus wrote: »

I've just opened a Privilege Premier account. It seemed to me to be the best combination of deals on the market (even considering that as an employee of another bank, I would get a discount on their packaged account). So instead of paying 5.50/month for European breakdown cover and about 2/month to extend the Nationwide travel insurance worldwide, I now pay 13/month, but this also gives insurance for our 2 smartphones, which seems much cheaper than the insurance offered by the networks.

Flex plus is a Tenner a month and insures everyone's phone who lives at that address and worldwide travel & Breakdown etc 'so I would defiantly say this is the leader of packaged accounts at the moment.

212

They are bringing out new ones at some point. 'Spring' - isn't it Spring now?! So possibly very soon after the existing lot are pulled....

Been a few people rushing to open joint priv/priv prem accounts before they are pulled! (Myself included!!).

For me Co-ops is better than Nationwide's purely on the phone insurance - excesses are £50 Apple/£25 others whatever the claim. Nationwide is £100 Apple/£50 others excess for Lost/Stolen. Nationwide's account is also limited to 2 claims per account per year, co-op's is 2 per holder so that's 4 for most accounts (or 6 or 8 if you have 3/4 people!)

Plus personally Nationwide wouldn't give me a new account, they'd only upgrade my existing one (credit scoring!). Overdraft on my existing FlexDirect is free for another year. If I upgraded it's only free for 3 months, so that's £15.50 'extra' I'd pay on top of the fee for each month past mid-June that I don't clear it.

Completely agree with it depending on the situation though - if someone has just had say their kitchen done then the White Good's cover alone could easily top any account on the market! I've never seen any mis-selling (or even encountered any complaints related to it) - but I know there is now a wave of Packaged Account Mis-selling claims that I've seen other banks in the news for, similar to the PPI rush

itsanne

Priv Prem acc certainly works for me. I've just opened one without knowing it would be discontinued. The annual fee is less than husband and I had to pay for travel insurance last year, so two of us with good travel insurance and RAC cover which would cost more than the fee on its own is a no brainer for us. Individual circumstances dictate whether any given packaged account is beneficial, but they shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

Anthorn

212 wrote: »

They are bringing out new ones at some point. 'Spring' - isn't it Spring now?! So possibly very soon after the existing lot are pulled....

In nature Spring starts at the Spring Equinox which is loosely around Easter time which is the end of March.

All we have really is a report from a third party and no official public announcement from the Co-op. Pulling the accounts might have nothing to do with the action of the FSA and everything to do with negotiations with Lloyds TSB to buy branches. According to Lloyds they will come to a decision in June over whether to go ahead with the Co-op deal or go to an IPO. On the Co-op side they will be no doubt tackling the earlier finding by the FSA that the Co-op is £1bn light of the required funds for the buyout. So it could be that the Co-op is reviewing accounts in view of an expected upcoming large influx of customers from the Lloyds TSB branches. In that case the Co-op could be seeing the buyout as all over but the paperwork and the shouting.

http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/business/lloyds-to-decide-on-co-op-branch-deal-by-summer-1-2818192

CaroB_2

I've been trying to upgrade my joint current account to a smilemore one for 10 days now with no luck - you can't do it online and you can't even do it over the phone as they have to call you back. I've had two 'appointments' for them to call me at work and they've not kept either of them, instead calling at random times on my mobile when I couldn't answer. Very irritating.
I'm even more frustrated now reading this as I only have 6 days left! But perhaps it explains why they're not being very good getting back to me: a) they're very busy with other people desperately trying to upgrade before the 31st March and b) they're not that bothered selling a now defunct account.
However, it is having a negative effect on me in that I'm very frustrated with them so they may be losing my custom completely....