Lloyds and Halifax Closing my Accounts?

MABLE

I know with another account I have with Nationwide BS they state to earn the five percent interest on your savings they do not accept transfers between internal accounts as meeting the funding levels. With Lloyds they have told me in branch you can pay the money in and withdraw out straight away and there is nothing about not being able to transfer between accounts for meeting a particular accounts criteria.

I would have thought Lloyds banking group would put it in their terms and conditions if transferring betweens accounts to get the interest was not permitted.

Clarification from the Lloyds rep on this site would be useful.

Ed-1

MABLE wrote: »

I know with another account I have with Nationwide BS they state to earn the five percent interest on your savings they do not accept transfers between internal accounts as meeting the funding levels. With Lloyds they have told me in branch you can pay the money in and withdraw out straight away and there is nothing about not being able to transfer between accounts for meeting a particular accounts criteria.

I would have thought Lloyds banking group would put it in their terms and conditions if transferring betweens accounts to get the interest was not permitted.

Clarification from the Lloyds rep on this site would be useful.

It is permitted that internal transfers between accounts is OK to receive interest in account specific terms and conditions. It is in the general banking terms and conditions that they can decide to close your accounts for any reason they want given two months notice or immediately if they suspect fraud.

If someone has a large number of credit accounts on their credit files or a large number of recent searches or is constantly stoozing their overdraft or... (the list is endless) and they draw attention to themselves (e.g. by transferring cash regularly through their accounts) then this can prompt a risk assessment on their accounts and the bank can decline recent applications or decide to close existing accounts for the same reason.

When you apply for an account with Lloyds banking group the system carries out a preliminary credit check and depending on the 'score' this can flag an application for further checks (known as stage 2 credit checking). As part of the terms and conditions, the bank has an account review/monitoring team to ensure customers continue to meet their criteria after that initial assessment on application and if they don't they'll close the accounts given notice.

MABLE

Ed-1 wrote: »

It is permitted that internal transfers between accounts is OK to receive interest in account specific terms and conditions. It is in the general banking terms and conditions that they can decide to close your accounts for any reason they want given two months notice or immediately if they suspect fraud.

If someone has a large number of credit accounts on their credit files or a large number of recent searches or is constantly stoozing their overdraft or... (the list is endless) and they draw attention to themselves (e.g. by transferring cash regularly through their accounts) then this can prompt a risk assessment on their accounts and the bank can decline recent applications or decide to close existing accounts for the same reason.

When you apply for an account with Lloyds banking group the system carries out a preliminary credit check and depending on the 'score' this can flag an application for further checks (known as stage 2 credit checking). As part of the terms and conditions, the bank has an account review/monitoring team to ensure customers continue to meet their criteria after that initial assessment on application and if they don't they'll close the accounts given notice.

So based on the above by transferring between accounts should not have caused a problem. Must be other issues at stake.

keiran

Ed-1 wrote: »

In the case of someone I know that has just had his accounts closed down with Lloyds/Halifax, he was transferring a few thousand through his accounts and the payments were flagged. Although they passed the payments, they were not happy with how he was using his accounts (just to earn interest) and so blocked them and gave notice of closure.

They didn't state that he could never open another account with them though. It seemed to be a risk based decision though from a different department as they made an unrecorded enquiry into his credit file before deciding to close them. His credit rating had taken a hit with lots of recently opened accounts (for a certain Yorkshire Bank offer ).

Banks do have monitoring teams which review accounts periodically and often review recent applications by carrying out further credit checks - they are required to by law for anti-money laundering purposes.

So it seems to be if you draw attention to yourself in some way, this can happen.

I hope I don't get affected .....

I've latterly opened and switched numerous accounts, for the incentives and rewards. (But always complying with the terms and conditions.) There's also 3 credit cards doing stoozing. My Experian shows 40 accounts, but for some reason no longer shows my further umpteen Yorkshire bank accounts

My credit rating on Experian ( for what it's worth) has fallen from 999("excellent") to 732 ( only "fair) , even reaching "poor" for a week.
However, I know that I'm not going to be applying for any sort of credit for a long time, and assume that the score will rise as searches drop off over the months

MARTYM8`

keiran wrote: »

I hope I don't get affected .....

I've latterly opened and switched numerous accounts, for the incentives and rewards. (But always complying with the terms and conditions.) There's also 3 credit cards doing stoozing. My Experian shows 40 accounts, but for some reason no longer shows my further umpteen Yorkshire bank accounts

My credit rating on Experian ( for what it's worth) has fallen from 999("excellent") to 732 ( only "fair) , even reaching "poor" for a week.
However, I know that I'm not going to be applying for any sort of credit for a long time, and assume that the score will rise as searches drop off over the months

I am never sure if these credit scores mean much - I have applied for several accounts over the last few months and the 'Noddle' score has barely changed at all.

I have a rather different experience with Yorkshire/Clydesdale - every one of their account openings resulted in two credit searches on my file. On one day I had four alerts/entries for them - for 2 accounts.

For another bank an entry shows each month with callcredit saying 'noticeable increase in balance' - which is just me paying in the sum required to earn interest so I assume everyone gets those?

What I never do is switch/move away from companies I value/have had good dealings with - the Lloyds Group is not on that list!

Not that any of this is of relevance to the OP's issue - but the first advice as has been stated is for them to open at least one more current account (maybe two) with other banking groups - while pursuing Lloyds for an explanation in parallel.

More generally I was wondering what they do with all your direct debits/standing orders when they close your account - do you have to cancel them and re-set them up with your supplier(s)/payees? And are you allowed to switch the account before closure to avoid this - do they inform your switch bank of issues?

Ed-1

MARTYM8` wrote: »

I am never sure if these credit scores mean much - I have applied for several accounts over the last few months and the 'Noddle' score has barely changed at all.

I have a rather different experience with Yorkshire/Clydesdale - every one of their account openings resulted in two credit searches on my file. On one day I had four alerts/entries for them - for 2 accounts.

For another bank an entry shows each month with callcredit saying 'noticeable increase in balance' - which is just me paying in the sum required to earn interest so I assume everyone gets those?

What I never do is switch/move away from companies I value/have had good dealings with - the Lloyds Group is not on that list!

Not that any of this is of relevance to the OP's issue - but the first advice as has been stated is for them to open at least one more current account (maybe two) with other banking groups - while pursuing Lloyds for an explanation in parallel.

More generally I was wondering what they do with all your direct debits/standing orders when they close your account - do you have to cancel them and re-set them up with your supplier(s)/payees? And are you allowed to switch the account before closure to avoid this - do they inform your switch bank of issues?

What happens is they place an 'indicator' on your account which blocks any further transactions so no more direct debits or standing orders will be taken. Also as a result of the blocks, you are unable to switch your account so you have to set them all up on a new account from scratch.

YorkshireBoy

MARTYM8` wrote: »

I am never sure if these credit scores mean much - I have applied for several accounts over the last few months and the 'Noddle' score has barely changed at all.

Mine went from 5/5 to 4/5 last month, due to me taking on around £16K of new (stoozing) credit card debt. I would have expected it to recover again to 5/5 in a few months once some 'calm' had been restored, as has been the case in the past. However, since yet another fee-free BT card has appeared on the market (Sainsburys Nectar), resulting in another £9K of debt , I expect the recovery to take a little longer this time!


And these 3 credit cards were all obtained against a backdrop of multiple current account openings (well into the teens) over the last 3 months. Deduction?...current account searches don't impact on your credit rating at all!

I have a rather different experience with Yorkshire/Clydesdale - every one of their account openings resulted in two credit searches on my file. On one day I had four alerts/entries for them - for 2 accounts.

All 'hard' searches? Or were a lot of them 'soft' searches for ID/AML purposes?

For another bank an entry shows each month with callcredit saying 'noticeable increase in balance' - which is just me paying in the sum required to earn interest so I assume everyone gets those?

Can't say I do, or at least I've never noticed. Are you paying for an additional service?...Noddle Improve or something?

And are you allowed to switch the account before closure to avoid this - do they inform your switch bank of issues?

I'd say it was imperative the OP switches these payments ASAP, whether that be via CASS* or manually. And no, I don't think a message will be sent to the new bank. However, as has been speculated above, they may post a general 'concern' on an FPA database.


* EDIT: I see above (from first hand experience?) that it may not be possible to use the CASS!

MARTYM8`

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

Are you paying for an additional service?...Noddle Improve or something?

Noddle were offering their premium service for only £30 for the year (normally £45) until the end of Feb - thats full 'credit score', alerts, web monitoring all the usual stuff that others are charging £13 a month for. It also updates more quickly - and is more complete than some of the other agencies in my experience.

For £2.50 a month it seemed a small expense given my recent account openings!

Re the noticeable increase in balance entry on noddle the note states

"The balance on one or more of your accounts has increased by a noticeable amount."

This is for a payment in of about £1,000 each month which appears from that bank every month - I might understand if it was £20,000 but £1k a month is hardly unusual. Just seems a very odd entry and hardly money laundering territory!

glider3560

MARTYM8` wrote: »

Re the noticeable increase in balance entry on noddle the note states

"The balance on one or more of your accounts has increased by a noticeable amount."

This is for a payment in of about £1,000 each month which appears from that bank every month - I might understand if it was £20,000 but £1k a month is hardly unusual. Just seems a very odd entry and hardly money laundering territory!

I was under the impression that only negative balances were reported. Never seen that message on mine for any accounts.

YorkshireBoy

glider3560 wrote: »

I was under the impression that only negative balances were reported. Never seen that message on mine for any accounts.

Me too, but I remember a few years ago when we were stoozing using the Egg Money card, that credit balances* were shown with a "+" prefix. But that was credit cards, not current accounts.


Marty, is it possible your credit card(s) balance went up a little more than normal that month?


* On which they paid 4% AER!