Lloyds Vantage

Legacy_user

I have about £3k currently earning 3% in a Cheshire Direct ISA. The interest rate goes down to 1% at the end of the month so I'm going to move the money to my Lloyds Vantage account (currently empty).

My plan is this. Have £3k sitting in the account, on 30th of the month transfer £1k out, then back in again the next day. This should mean I am funding the account with the requisite £1k each month.

I will effectively only have £2k in the account for one day, does that mean I will get the lower tier interest rate just for the one/two days, or for the whole month? Is interest calculated on a daily basis?

Thanks for any advice guys.

YorkshireBoy

You're transferring too close to the end of the month. If you forget, or there's a system error, or a weekend/Bank Holiday gets in the way you've lost a month's interest.


Also, why are you waiting a day to bring it back? Simply bring it straight back same day...like the rest of us do!


For those of us with £5K, the best time to do the 'shuffle' is the day the interest is paid (so you can cream it off at the same time with just the one log in). If you adopt this policy now, you'll benefit later when you're in the same position.


Oh, and interest is indeed calculated daily (at close of business)...as it is with all accounts.

System

Thanks YorkshireBoy. I would like to automate the process which is why I chose two days. Day 1 SO out, day 2 SO back in. Sounds like I should set these up for a bit earlier in the month -say 28th?

YorkshireBoy

Still too late in the month. Transfer on the 2nd.


It sounds like the other account will have a zero, or near zero balance? Or maybe you can't guarantee there to be always at least £1K in there? Based on the fact that if you had the money you'd have it in the Vantage account making 3% AER.


What if the first SO fails (for whatever reason)? There will be nothing for the second SO to send back. Result would be a charge from the second account (unpaid item fee, or paid item fee and debit interest, or a monthly/daily charge for authorised/unauthorised O/D usage?), and loss of interest for the Vantage (if you use the 28th to 30th as you'd originally proposed.


I'm firmly of the opinion that you shouldn't use SOs unless both accounts are funded sufficiently and they're with the same organisation, ie you have 2 Vantage accounts. And even though I have 3 Lloyds Vantage, 3 BoS Vantage, 4 Halifax Reward accounts, 3 Nationwide FlexDirect accounts, a YB Current Account Direct, and a Santander account, I still make all my transfers manually on the 2nd working day of the month...as it happens that was this morning before I went to work. That's how quick it is to do it manually!

innovate

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

And even though I have 3 Lloyds Vantage, 3 BoS Vantage, 4 Halifax Reward accounts, 3 Nationwide FlexDirect accounts, a YB Current Account Direct, and a Santander account

Are you slacking, YB? No 3 TSB Enhances, only 3 Flexdirects, only one 123, no FD, no HSBC?

I mainly agree with all you said, though. I started out trying to automate my transfers with SOs. It worked well with about 6 accounts, then it got a bit out of hand because I was running out of working days / reasonable amounts of money in transfer at any one point in time. So I am now doing lots of my monthly transfers manually, on days where I need to log in anyway to skim off the interest.

YorkshireBoy

innovate wrote: »

Are you slacking, YB? No 3 TSB Enhances, only 3 Flexdirects, only one 123, no FD, no HSBC?

Don't have enough 'cash' to fill up 3 TSB Enhance. I've gone back into funds in my S&S ISA and currently doing quite well.
Was turned down for the 4th FlexDirect (as I already had a FlexAccount, for the free travel insurance).
Santander isn't a 1-2-3. It's an old Premier Direct which I'm still stoozing the £10K O/D on (it needs £1K funding, or it did when I bagged it so I've just continued).
Had FD in days gone. Have HSBC now. Don't do Reg Savers, so the HSBC is one of two 'donor' accounts I have for switching offers (the other is NatWest). Trouble is, because I have so many account providers I'm really limiting myself to Barclays or, perhaps, RBS...and both are unlikely to launch switching offers? Although I may do Co-op again at some point (not for £50 though, it'd have to be £100...after the hassle I had last time!)

anotheruser

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

Also, why are you waiting a day to bring it back? Simply bring it straight back same day...like the rest of us do!

Because sometimes it doesn't work quite right.

Example:

Bank A (Lloyds Vantage).
Bank B (another account).

If Bank B sends the money before Bank A debits it, then it could leave Bank B in a bit of trouble.
The same with the other way. If Bank A debits the account first then there (for a few hours), wouldn't be the correct amount in the account.

Personally I leave monies in accounts for up to 2 days. This then combats the above and any bank holidays and such. I'm not desperate for the £1K to be in any account, so long as it is cycling round the correct ones in the right order and lands back where it started then that's fine.

I also start all of mine off on the 1st of the month. The next SO triggers on the 3rd. The original money is bank in my account by the 5th.

Archi_Bald

anotheruser wrote: »

......
......
If Bank B sends the money before Bank A debits it, then it could leave Bank B in a bit of trouble.
The same with the other way.....

But that doesn't happen with Faster Payment, which is what YB was suggesting.

Only thing that could happen is that the FP doesn't happen instantly - but you can see exactly what happens, and you are in control of what you send when to where. There is definitely no reason to leave 2 days in between the payments if you make them manually. I have been doing a dozen or so accounts for about 12 months and never had any problems with instantly paying back the money.

retiredin2011

When I transfer money between my accounts in different banks I am logged into both banks at the same time.


Second the money appears in my Halifax account it is sent back to my Nationwide account.


I was going to set this up automatically but as I log into my accounts at least once a day I didn't bother.

System

I like that idea. If I do this on 2nd of the month the £1k will only be out of my Vantage account for a couple of minutes. The second account is also a Lloyd's account.

jennifernil

As we travel quite a lot and don't always have internet access, when I first had the Vantage accounts I set up SOs to move the money around, using £1000 from a savings account, but, as said above, it can get complicated when weekends and BHs get in the way.

We found it was not so difficult after all to get on the internet at least a couple of times each month, and I have pretty much the whole month to move the money, so now I do it all by internal transfers, or FPs when necessary.

£1000 from my BOS V1 goes through 4 Halifax/BOS Rewards and 2 other Vantages and back to V1, while the 3 Lloyds Vantages get £1000 moved from one to another, as do the 3 TSB Enhances. Only takes a few minutes.

If I was bringing in the £1000 from another bank I would use FPs.

I usually make my transfers on the 2nd or 3rd of the month when possible.