High interest - Pay in requirements

IDWR

I noticed that several bank accounts offer incredible interest rates of up to 6% gross, if you save regularly the first year. However, these accounts usually require you to pay in at least 1,000 a month. Now, I am wondering, what exactly qualifies as 'pay in'? Can I have five accounts, at different banks, and just transfer my money from one account to another, to make sure I meet the 1,000 GBP 'pay in' requirement for each account?

So, for instance, I have 10,000 in my bank account, say at Santander. I have an account at NationWide and one at FirstDirect, both with a savings account attached. Can I pay 1,500 from my Santander account into my NationWide account, set up a scheduled saving of 350 per month there, and transfer the remaining 1,150 to my FD account - where I set up a scheduled saving of 350 per month as well? Then I transfer the final remainder of 800 GBP back to my Santander account - which I actually use as current account.

If this is the case, it would be possible to have dozens of saving accounts simultaneously, all with extraordinarily high interest rates, right? Or am I too optimistic now?

xylophone

Provided that you meet the pay in requirements, it doesn't matter whether it is by lump sum or in dribs and drabs or (necessarily) where it comes from - however, the source of the funds needs care as some providers specify it must be from an account not held with them.

It is perfectly possible to have multiple current and savings accounts and very many people use their accounts as you outline in your post.

Archi_Bald

You can do this for current accounts, it's what many people have been doing for a long time. It doesn't make sense for Regular Saver accounts.

You'll be hard pressed now to find many Regular Savers that take new applications and that pay more than 2%. Current account interest rates are also on the slide - e.g. Santander 123 is going to 1.5% in the next few weeks.

mt99

Regarding the First Direct account if you have a current account with them then you have access to their 6% regular saver. FD have no requirement to pay in £1000 a month to access the saver account - however open a standard saver with them, put £10 in it and that counts as a 'qualifying product' and you don't pay the £10/month account fee.

gingercordial

Archi_Bald wrote: »

You can do this for current accounts, it's what many people have been doing for a long time. It doesn't make sense for Regular Saver accounts.

You'll be hard pressed now to find many Regular Savers that take new applications and that pay more than 2%. Current account interest rates are also on the slide - e.g. Santander 123 is going to 1.5% in the next few weeks.

HSBC, First Direct and M&S all still have 6% regular savers available to new current account holders. It'd be worth the OP getting in on those whilst they're still around, as they are fixed rates for 12 months. Nationwide still has a 5% regular saver albeit this is a variable rate which has not yet gone down. Between the four of them that's potentially £1,300/month into regular saving accounts at a weighted average interest rate of 5.6%.

OP, yes this is what lots of us do (double figures of bank accounts here, but I don't have the most on this board). Check the T&Cs carefully for each account to make sure you know exactly when/how much money to pay in and where it should come from.

Note for the M&S account mentioned above you need to do a switch to a current account with them including transferring two direct debits - this may put you off but if you're willing to figure out how to do this there's no monthly minimum funding and also a switching bonus at the moment.