Does anyone Multi Account

Cotta

Hi All,

I spoke to a colleague recently about how I was reasonably happy with my Halifax current Account, I got a switching reward of £100 and for paying in my salary and having two direct debits coming out of it I get the annual reward of £5 per month. My colleague told me that I need to set up multiple current accounts and avail of all the benefits.

My questions are is this possible and if so does anyone here do it and what does it entail? E.g. is there a lot of money switching etc to be done each month?

Archi_Bald

Lots of people here have lots of current accounts, usually for the reason that current accounts pay better interest than any savings accounts. If you have savings, investigate the current accounts that pay interest. The T&Cs for each of the accounts will be different - details on the provider's website, and lots of threads on here about all of them.

If you don't have any savings, the only reason for having more than one current account (with another financial group) would be so you have access to cash in the case of any problem at your main account.

InsideInsurance

Cotta wrote: »

My questions are is this possible and if so does anyone here do it and what does it entail? E.g. is there a lot of money switching etc to be done each month?

Yes its possible but be aware of the terms as some banks either cap the number of accounts you can have with them or cap the number of accounts that receive certain benefits.

There are a lot of people that do it on here, particularly as a few current accounts have been offering high interest rates on moderate sums of money and so people have opened multiple ones to get the benefits on 3 or 4 times the alleged limit. Nationwide FlexDirect was an example as contrary to the terms of 1 account with 5% up to #2,500 balance they actually were giving it for up to 4 accounts (now corrected) so if you had 10k of savings you just split it across the 4 current accounts.

There can be a fair amount of money switching depending on the terms. Some find it worth while and others dont

Cotta

Thanks for the feedback, at the moment the only current account I have is Halifax. I would have liked to have kept this account and perhaps setup a second current account which would have enabled me to keep the benefits of Halifax (£5 per month, £50 interest free overdraft etc) which perhaps avialing of a better cashback account too.

YorkshireBoy

Cotta wrote: »

...the benefits of Halifax (£5 per month, £50 interest free overdraft etc)

Be aware that if you use even a penny of the overdraft you'll lose the fiver that month.

shaz77_2

I'm with Yorkshireboy.

I don't think there is any benefit to you setting up another current account.

pmduk

shaz77 wrote: »

I'm with Yorkshireboy.

I don't think there is any benefit to you setting up another current account.

Where did you get that from? The OP doesn't mention using the overdraft, Yorkshireboy just pointed out a potential problem hat may not even apply.

Cotta

Good point on the overdraft facility with Halifax - I had indeed overlooked this.

I'm just trying to be a little smarter with my accounts, moving to Halifax was definitely an improvement on the account I had before but I was just curious if with a little bit of tweaking having two accounts would work even better?

At the moment I'm clearing off some debts so my salary goes directly to these so cashbacks and new account incentives are my main motivation at present.

msallen

Incentives (such as the £100 you got from Halifax) are nowadays likely to be only available where you use the new switching service and thus close any previous account, so you can discount those for now. However there are still other things you can get for free just by cycling money through your accounts. For example there is one of the Nationwide ones which offers free annual travel insurance if a certain amount (£750 from memory) goes through it every month.

You'll find numerous threads on here about doing this, but basically you need to transfer the appropriate amount from Account A to Account B, then transfer it back to Account A again. For accounts where there is a number of DDs required, then obviously you will have leave enough in Account B to cover these.

For example I have 5 accounts. Once a month cash leaves account A (my main account) for Account B, a little is left behind to cover DDs and the rest is transferred to Account C. A little is left here to cover DDs and the rest goes to Account D etc etc until the balance arrives back in Account A, typically 3 or 4 days after it started its journey.

Cotta

msallen wrote: »

Incentives (such as the £100 you got from Halifax) are nowadays likely to be only available where you use the new switching service and thus close any previous account, so you can discount those for now. However there are still other things you can get for free just by cycling money through your accounts. For example there is one of the Nationwide ones which offers free annual travel insurance if a certain amount (£750 from memory) goes through it every month.

You'll find numerous threads on here about doing this, but basically you need to transfer the appropriate amount from Account A to Account B, then transfer it back to Account A again. For accounts where there is a number of DDs required, then obviously you will have leave enough in Account B to cover these.

For example I have 5 accounts. Once a month cash leaves account A (my main account) for Account B, a little is left behind to cover DDs and the rest is transferred to Account C. A little is left here to cover DDs and the rest goes to Account D etc etc until the balance arrives back in Account A, typically 3 or 4 days after it started its journey.

Interesting, what benefits do each of the five accounts offer to prompt you to do this?

shaz77_2

I can't fathom the point in having more than one current account, this thread has not convinced me otherwise.