123 Santander Current Account

talexuser

dburford9 wrote: »

so not sure how else to qualify/set up 2 direct debit payments?

1 mobile phone
2 credit card

then top up from where ever you would have paid the bills anyway. There's 3% cashback on phone bills to mitigate against the £24 a year fee.

kidmugsy

I've decided to do all my charitable giving by DD in future. Everybody's a winner!

Eco_Miser

dburford9 wrote: »

So a direct debit is set-up by a company and a standing order is set up by you....ok.....

Maybe I could just find some really cheap memberships to something? maybe something that costs £1 per month?

Would this be ok? as I don't have any household bills - so not sure how else to qualify/set up 2 direct debit payments?

Rather conveniently, there are a few banks, such as Tesco (as mentioned by Cornucopia), which will set up a direct debit (or several) from your Santander or other current account, into your savings account with them. So while it is the bank setting up the DD, they do it at your online request - and you get to keep all the money.

oldfella

a DD is a pull from another account to take money from your account

a SO is a push from your account to another

it doesnt matter who sets up the DD

System

Why do banks ask for Direct Debits to be set up to be able to qualify for particular accounts?

Ed-1

dburford9 wrote: »

Why do banks ask for Direct Debits to be set up to be able to qualify for particular accounts?

They want you to use their current account as your main account, not as a savings account.

macman

You can't 'forget' to credit the £500: you simply set up an SO to transfer that sum in every month: if you are not using the S123 as your current a/c then you simply set up a further SO to send it back again the same day.
But if you are not intending to comply with the £500 per month credit and the two DD's, there's no point in opening this account, because you will be paying £24 per year in fees and earning no interest.

System

Santander will be fine with all this?

1. Setting a Direct Debit from a Tesco account for £0.50

+

2. Transferring £500 into the 123 account from a rival bank and then transferring it back again.

Santander won't be funny about all this?

Cornucopia

I have something similar on my second 123 account.

My Tesco transfer is £10 pm, but other than that, I don't see the issue. Banks have to accept that when they set conditions on an account, customers will set things up to comply with those conditions (just).

agent69

dburford9 wrote: »

So any direct debit is fine.

I think any 2 direct debits are OK, irrespective of how often they get used,

The problem is that the account doesn't qualify for the 3% interest rate until the 2 DD's have been used. So if they are monthly DD's the longest you have to wait for the 3% is a month. If it's an annual DD you could be waiting for a year.