Halifax Children's Regular Saver Account letter

fossman

Hi everyone

Halifax have sent me a letter asking me to make an appointment in branch to discuss nominating a bank account to transfer the money into.

I am certain last year when the account was about to expire Halifax sent a form which they said once completed with a nominated bank accounts details would mean the money would get transfer to the same bank account every year.

Can anyone remember this?

colsten

You can't transfer a regular saver to a regular saver.

Included in the terms of the Halifax kids reg saver is

After 12 months, any money you have saved into your Kid’s Regular Saver along with interest accrued will be automatically transferred into your nominated account. This will be a Young Saver account opened as part of the Kid’s Regular Saver application if you do not already hold a Young Saver or Save4it account with us

Assuming you want the money to do better than in a Young Saver, you need to take action.

Westie983

The regular saver will become a young saver if you dont do anything, The letter is asking you to go in and nominate a alternative account if you wish. If you leave the regular saver to become a young saver then you will need to open up a new regular saver, with ID again and a hour appointment.

The easier option would be to go in and open a young saver or let them know which alternative nominated account you wish to use then once the funds have been transferred at the end of the 12 months you can continue to fund the regular saver again for another year, without having open a new one....

AlwaysLearnin

We had this recently too. We had a young saver account already open and it turned out that all we/they had to in branch was link the reg saver and young saver accounts, which they did easily at the customer service desk.

It's all apparently due to system changes, but what it hopefully means is that the reg saver will auto renew each year going forward, unless you instruct otherwise of course

fossman

I'll just pop in and ask at the Customer Service desk, I just thought it was strange getting the letter this year because the form that I completed last year said I wouldn't get asked to nominate an account again.

Speculator

The letter dated 11 July 2014 said..


"At your next Kid's Regular Saver anniversay in 2015 the money you've saved, along with the interest accrued, will automatically transfer into the easy access savings account you have selected on your form. You will then be able to continue saving in your Kids' Regular Saver for another 12 months without providing further information"

I too was surprised to receive another letter on Monday saying my daughter don't have a nominated savings account for them to transfer to. I thought it was all sorted out last year.

Westie983

systems were merged with the LBG platform in late 2014 so this is causing issues with regular savers set up before the change, once you have a empty regular saver you can continue with the same account, or leave it to turn into a young saver.

You will need to sign (agree) new T&C each year so the regular saver doesnt just auto renew you need to either empty the regular saver then redesignate it back to a regular saver as it becomes a young saver, or keep the money in there and open a new regular saver.

at least the regular saver will alway become a young saver unless you tell customer services you already have one and dont need another one and want to continue with a new regular saver (advantage is its the same details and your SO will remain the same)

Westie983

It's all apparently due to system changes, but what it hopefully means is that the reg saver will auto renew each year going forward, unless you instruct otherwise of course

it wont auto renew you need to empty the account into a young saver account or a cheque withdrawal or external payment out, then get the customer services/counter to reset the account back to a regular saver as it will have matured and changed to a young saver automatically...

emptying the account means the SO remains the same but you cant reset the account to a reguar saver while funds are still there, which is why it becomes a young saver.

you could end up with numerous young savers in time if you open up new regular saver each year, but they can be merged in branch if this is what happens...

Imnoexpert_2

I received the same letter. This has been a very confused account for years and the communications are often poorly worded. One problem is that this is a branch account and the telephone help people are sometimes (in my experience) not very knowledgeable and don't have access to the account.

I made an appointment in Branch to sort this out.

It took over an hour to do - and when I got home (my fault) I realised it wasn't quite what I expected.

Because my account was an old one and needed linking to the new account even though we had nominated a young saver account for the transfer of the maturing funds 12 months ago we had to close the existing Regular Saver and open a new one. Ok I had to go through a declaration and watch a video before it could be done but that's life.

The issue though is that the balance in the Regular Saver (£1000) can't be transferred to the new account. It has to go to the Young Saver. Also the direct debit then needs changing (grandparents pay this so a bit of a pain).

What that meant for me is that because I have done this 2 months before the end of the term, for 2 months the £1000 gets 3% interest in YS account, instead of 6% in KRS. I know it's a small amount of money but I don't see why Halifax should benefit from it not my child.

fossman

Just been to my Halifax branch and they were not very helpful.

They said I need to go into branch on the day the Regular Saver account matures and they will transfer the money out of the account and restart the Regular Saver for another year.

But on the Halifax website in the Kid's Regular Saver benefits section it states:

"After 12 months, any money you have saved into your Kid’s Regular Saver along with interest accrued will be automatically transferred into your nominated account. This will be a Young Saver account opened as part of the Kid’s Regular Saver application if you do not already hold a Young Saver or Save4it account with us"

So I wonder why can't I nominate my daughters Save4it account now?

Westie983

Save4its are no longer an account that can be opened as its replaced by the young saver so you cant use it as a nominated account but you can do the withdrawal and the credit side of things in branch.

I will check the procedure when Im back in work and feed back, as it does say automatic transfer, so as long as you have a young saver as the nominated account then this should happen.