Santander 1-2-3 as a Savings Account - Is it Safe?

cheesemason

Hi

I am trying to find a way to make my savings work better for me, and am considering the Santander 1-2-3 account.

I will usually have between around £15-20k of savings and am a bit fed up of my 1.1% interest.

However, I am a bit concerned about keeping that much in a current account, and (rightly or wrongly) feel its a bit more vulnerable to people hacking into it and running off with all my money!

The plan would be to just use it for savings and direct debits (to get the cashback), and would probably cut up the debit card / cashcard for extra safety.

What do people think? Or does anyone have any other advice to get better money from savings please?

Also, what happens if your savings go over £20k? Do you get interest on ANY of it? Or do you just lose the interest on the amount above £20k?

Thanks for your help

[Deleted User]

If you go over £20K, you just don't get interest on the portion over £20K. You'd get 3% on the full £20K.

LXdaddy

The Santander 123 current account is just about as safe as any other account that you can operate online.


we don't have cheque book and the debit cards are never carried about with us. We also don't use the accounts to pay for anything online only for the Direct debits that pay cashback.


And yes you get interest on up to £20,000, and funds in the account above that figure don't earn interest but the £20,000 will get the equivalent of 2.96%/year interest each month. (2.96% is the gross interest figure = 3% AER)

AnotherJoe

I think your fears are totally overblown. As long as you keep the login details safe you are protected, so unless there is some massive security breach on their systems (in which case you wont get the blame) its no more likely to be accessed than any other place you might have your money. I dont think you even have to have the debit card (we just got 3 123 accounts and certainly didn't get it for all of them) and there is no harm at all destroying it.

Where is your money now? A postal account? Whats to stop someone impersonating you, perhaps the postie looking at details of your account, sending a change of address letter and then stealing your money from a postal only account?

cheesemason

Currently with Virgin Money (online) using an ISA.

What do you use to login, is it card operated? Password? Many layers of security?

I probably am overblowing it and worrying for nothing, just wanting to check first! Paranoid of viruses, keyloggers or something else getting free reign on my account with a lot of money in!

Cheers

silver145

Before santander i would look at TSB/ CLub lloyds/ FD and a couple of others that offer higher interest.

cheesemason

silver145 wrote: »

Before santander i would look at TSB/ CLub lloyds/ FD and a couple of others that offer higher interest.

Hi

Apart from zero fees, what advantages do these have? They only seem to pay interest on a fiarly small amount

Thanks

ratechaser

cheesemason wrote: »

Hi

Apart from zero fees, what advantages do these have? They only seem to pay interest on a fiarly small amount

Thanks

Conventional wisdom in these parts is to fill up the higher interest accounts first, although that will mean opening several in your case. Only you can decide if it's worth your time doing that versus the easier option of just keeping it in the one santander account.

silver145

cheesemason wrote: »

Hi

Apart from zero fees, what advantages do these have? They only seem to pay interest on a fiarly small amount

Thanks

santander = 20k & 3% / and you usually have 15k savings

Club lloyds - 4k at 5%
TSB 2k at 5%
Nationwide 2.5k at 5%,

before getting into the regular savers at 5% that they offer, that is already more than half of your actual savings pot, so when you ask what advantage does it offer, "do i want half my savings earning alot more interest" its a simple question to yourself

cheesemason

silver145 wrote: »

santander = 20k & 3% / and you usually have 15k savings

Club lloyds - 4k at 5%
TSB 2k at 5%
Nationwide 2.5k at 5%,

before getting into the regular savers at 5% that they offer, that is already more than half of your actual savings pot, so when you ask what advantage does it offer, "do i want half my savings earning alot more interest" its a simple question to yourself

A very fair point! Assume it means moving money between each account every few days to make sure each one gets the minimum deposit each month. So all depends if I think my brain can cope with that with the brain cells my toddler seems to be killing

bigadaj

cheesemason wrote: »

A very fair point! Assume it means moving money between each account every few days to make sure each one gets the minimum deposit each month. So all depends if I think my brain can cope with that with the brain cells my toddler seems to be killing

Monthly standing orders will do the work for you, as they all exceed the standing order value then should t be any risk of going overdrawn.

Lloyds needs direct debits but easily solved, just do a search for options.