Banks Memory - Goldfish or Elephant?

D94ccm

Bank's Memory


There has obviously been a plethora of banking incentives to switch current accounts since the Government has attempted to increase the competition in the sector.


This has then led to an increase in the number of people coming up with ways to maximise the amount of money you can get from banks and their offers.


This has led me to think that switching banks should really be an annual event, such as spring cleaning! In the long term however there are only so many banks and so many times you can become a new customer. My question therefore is this, if you close a current account, how long is it before a bank forgets that you ever had an account with them?


If it is something like 12 months or less then I think you can probably see where I am going with this. If it's never then I think I have run up a cul de sac!


Thank in advance for any replies.

colsten

It is not a question of a bank's memory, it is a question of T&Cs of a switching offer. For example, the First Direct T&Cs say you can only ever get one joining bonus. Halifax won't give you a joining bonus if you have already received one after a certain date. M&S and Coop have different terms. And that is where the plethora of direct joining bonuses ends. Don't expect to get rich from them.

meer53

D94ccm wrote: »

Bank's Memory


There has obviously been a plethora of banking incentives to switch current accounts since the Government has attempted to increase the competition in the sector.


This has then led to an increase in the number of people coming up with ways to maximise the amount of money you can get from banks and their offers.


This has led me to think that switching banks should really be an annual event, such as spring cleaning! In the long term however there are only so many banks and so many times you can become a new customer. My question therefore is this, if you close a current account, how long is it before a bank forgets that you ever had an account with them?


If it is something like 12 months or less then I think you can probably see where I am going with this. If it's never then I think I have run up a cul de sac!


Thank in advance for any replies.

Elephant...

agrinnall

colsten wrote: »

It is not a question of a bank's memory, it is a question of T&Cs of a switching offer. For example, the First Direct T&Cs say you can only ever get one joining bonus. Halifax won't give you a joining bonus if you have already received one after a certain date. M&S and Coop have different terms. And that is where the plethora of direct joining bonuses ends. Don't expect to get rich from them.

Actually, I think it's a reasonable question. If you go back to First Direct 10 years after you left them, will they really still have enough knowledge about you to be certain that you've broken the T&Cs? I don't know the answer, but in general banks start to archive data after about 13 months and by 6 or 7 years they are quite likely to have very little easily available.

colsten

The FD T&Cs are clear - if you had any account with them ever, they will not pay you the joining bonus again. Plenty of reports that they rigorously enforce this term, and why else would they have it if they didn't enforce it.