Current account comparison tool

Vortigern

innovate wrote:

As an aside, please stop trying to PM me, ######. You have tried 7 times now. My inbox will not take PMs, but more importantly, as I said a few days ago in response to your PM attempts, I prefer to discuss things in public.

badger09 - It was the above which led me to believe that innovate did not accept PMs. I don't doubt that you have been in touch previously.

grumbler - I know of at least one regular poster who returned after a PPR. Indefinite is not the same as permanent is it?

I wonder how long it will be before this thread is deleted?

Herbalus

Vortigern wrote: »

I wonder how long it will be before this thread is deleted?

Probably Monday morning. MSE towers doesn't work over the weekends so we're safe until then

Archi_Bald

The current account comparison tool will apparently be launched this Thursday, for customers of Lloyds, HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Nationwide. Should be interesting to see what people think of it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/bank-accounts/11477114/New-comparison-tool-matches-your-spending-to-the-current-account-that-will-suit-you-best.html

Vortigern

The Telegraph article linked above suggests that we have to send 12 months worth of downloaded bank statements to Go Compare.

I'm not sure if I trust Go Compare with all that transaction data. It must be worth something to them?

Herbalus

I too wouldn't send my financial transactions to go compare.

Although I'm tempted to with my Nationwide FlexDirect - £1001 in and out every month on 15th, with an additional ~£8 out on 2nd. I wonder what their fancy systems would make of that.

In addition, I'd be interested to know if go compare will default to accounts it gets commission from if people switch, and how many current accounts it will list.

anoncol

The screenshot in the example, recommends switching main account just for an incentive. I think thats terrible advice. It should be about long term banking for your main account, whether it be cashback or interest etc. Escpecially in the example they ended up at Clydesdale which are a terrible ancient bank requiring lots of paper work.

Herbalus

If we start on the deficiencies of this tool, we'll be here all day.

It doesn't take in account that people tailor their banking habits to their products. So I might travel extensively and not use my debit card abroad because of high charges - this tool wouldn't know that I would benefit from an account with lower charges on abroad transactions. I might use my 0% overdraft occasionally to keep more money in my savings account - this tool doesn't know I have savings and would benefit from a current account with higher interest than my savings account if I put all my money there.

anoncol

What the hell just happened when i refreshed this thread? The theme has changed all garish!!!

Herbalus

anoncol wrote: »

What the hell just happened when i refreshed this thread? The theme has changed all garish!!!

haha yes, there's a new look to the forum. The old version is still available but the new one is creeping in on various boards.

Archi_Bald

The service is apparently available now but I couldn't figure out how to use it.

Just click the button to try the midata comparison and we'll walk you through the simple steps you need to take.

Beat me with a feather but I can't see that button.

The T&Cs are apparently here, on a lovemoney.com website. Amongst other stuff, they say:

Data
We do not store your data. Any data you give to us is kept during the browser session only. It is protected by secure encryption whilst there. Once your browser session ends or you choose to clear your data. Your data is removed from all our systems.

Santander and FD now offer midata downloads. TSB, Nationwide, Lloyds, HSBC don't but they do have .csv downloads which might be the files the comparison service uses.

I had a quick look at some midata files, downloaded from my accounts. The content detail differs from bank to bank but overall the files contain just fairly basic data - date, type of transaction (FPI, FPO, DD, ATM etc), transaction amount and balance).