Moving direct debits over to new current account ASAP

Corinthiancat

I set up a Santander 123 account and the account has apparently been active since last Friday (April 9th).

I've put money into the account and have already set up standing orders paying £500 in a month. However I still need to have 2 direct debits coming out of the account by May 7th otherwise I will lose all of the interest that I would have earned this month, as well as the standard £5 charge.

I want to move two direct debits I have with Lloyds over to this 123 account but Santander won't transfer them for me as I haven't "switched" current accounts, I've just opened a new one that I plan on using like a savings account, while still keeping my Lloyds current account open.

The 2 direct debits I want to transfer myself are for a charity and a political party. I checked the charity's website today and it appeared to imply that the earliest I could set up a new direct debit would be May 15th, meaning it would be a month too late and I'd lose my interest.

Does it really take over a month to set up or switch a direct debit to a new account? If so, how are you supposed to get it sorted within the first month?

If anyone has any advice on how I can set up two direct debits as quickly as possible for this month then I'd really appreciate it. I'd be willing to set up two new ones for the time being if it's cheap. I might even contact my direct debits and cease paying them if they can't do it quickly enough.

Any advice would be welcome.

Futuristic

Instead of changing DD, do you see option to create a new DD/donation completely with earlier dates?

It usually should only take 7-14 days to setup new DD

masonic

Paypal is a good option and usually fairly quick to set up. Charities etc tend to be a lot slower, so if you have any other direct debits, eg phone/utilities/credit card, I'd investigate switching one of those.

YorkshireBoy

Corinthiancat wrote: »

However I still need to have 2 direct debits coming out of the account by May 7th

No you don't.

You need to have 2 direct debit instructions (DDIs) set up on your 123 account by 7th May. There's no need for them to pay out at all in order to receive your interest (although you might wish to use the DDIs once per year to avoid them lapsing under the dormancy rules).

Kernel_Sanders

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

You need to have 2 direct debit instructions (DDIs) set up on your 123 account by 7th May. There's no need for them to pay out at all in order to receive your interest

Just ploughed through 9 pages to try and find the answer to this question: Currently Tesco (for example) can only pay a DD from 6 May, but could the instruction actually be set up from a Santander 123 account by Sunday 1 May at the latest?

colsten

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

Just ploughed through 9 pages to try and find the answer to this question: Currently Tesco (for example) can only arrange a DD from 6 May, but could this actually be 'set up' from a Santander 123 account by Sunday 1 May at the latest?

If the earliest date if 6 May [2016], then if you want it on May 1, it's got to be May 1 2017 or a later year.

masonic

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

Just ploughed through 9 pages to try and find the answer to this question: Currently Tesco (for example) can only pay a DD from 6 May, but could the instruction actually be set up from a Santander 123 account by Sunday 1 May at the latest?

There's a nice description of the process and timescales here. It is possible that a DD instruction submitted today would be approved and active by 1st May, but it could take longer than that. Given that Tesco is allowing 8 working days for instruction setup and payment, instruction setup itself could take anything from 2-6 working days depending on how quickly they move.