Santander 123 account-Partial Direct Debit switch?

philng

Looking to open 123 account BUT don't want to switch main banking from Lloyds.
Plan to credit the £20000 & then want to transfer cashback paying direct debits such as Gas/Elec/C Tax etc which are currently set up on different Vantage accounts. Is this easy to do in the Online app or will it have to be done in a branch?

Gromitt

You could just open an account as normal, and then ring the appropriate companies and give them the new bank account details. Thats probably the easiest way, then you can control when the details are changed as well.

But if you do a full switch, you can get £47.25 cash back (which would mean closing at least one of your Lloyds accounts)

Archi_Bald

Gromitt wrote: »

But if you do a full switch, you can get £47.25 cash back (which would mean closing at least one of your Lloyds accounts)

That's a bit of a gamble because the Quidco/TCB cashback should never be considered as a given. It does get paid most times, but there is no guarantee.

philng

Not bothered about the cash back but wondered if there is a facility when opening the account online to only transfer certain direct debits?

Archi_Bald

Some banks offer a partial switch but I believe it's a lot faster if you just do it yourself. Not sure Santander do offer any partial switch now.

In the time it takes you to tell them what you want to have switched, you could have done at least the first one already yourself. And you would have to check and double-check that the ones you want to transfer have been done, and only those etc etc.

dreaming

I recently went down the route of opening a 123 account and setting up the direct debits myself. I just waited until the ones I wanted to switch had just been paid from my Nationwide account then cancelled them and set them up with the new bank details. Actually most of my dd's pay out on the same date. I did 3 out of 4 online so it was easy and had confirmation within a day or so from the organisations. The only one I had to do via a paper form was Council Tax (possibly just my local council) but that was also done within the month. I then checked on Santander online banking to make sure they were set up and it was as easy as that. I did it this way as I had seen that some people had experienced problems with the switch system (plus I like to be in control of my own finances as much as possible). Interest and cashback was paid as expected:T

philng

So it is possible to transfer some direct debits as part of the application process?

dreaming

philng wrote: »

So it is possible to transfer some direct debits as part of the application process?

Sorry - I didn't make it clear. I did not use the switching service - just opened the Santander account then changed the dd details myself. Although I believe it is possible to do a partial Switch through the switching service I just found it so easy to do it myself (as I said most of it was done online with power company/water/virgin tv - just council tax required a form to be posted).

eskbanker

philng wrote: »

So it is possible to transfer some direct debits as part of the application process?

There's no option to transfer DDs during the application process, you need to use the switching service for that. My understanding is that Santander's switching service is 'all or nothing', i.e. if you use it at all then they'll transfer all of your DDs from your old account but won't do this on a selective basis, see the number of references to 'all' at their switching page....