Cash Switching Bribe

WillPS

HSBC putting out their Advance account offer and upping the normal rate for First Direct is a good sign. It could be that they've got this live this week hoping to get ahead of a rush of others next month too.

Halifax pushing up to £125/150 is quite likely on precedent - especially considering HSBC have pushed up theirs and Halifax risk losing a few customers over the Reward cutbacks

TSB I would guess will bring back their occasional MSE-exclusive switching bonus of £100-125 but maybe not until Spring - that said quite a few people I expect will be turning their Classic Plus in to a 'donor' now that the interest rate has sunk and contactless cashback finished (for many). I know mine will be exactly that now.

Co-op Bank seem to be resting their switching offer - whether this ever comes back remains to be seen.

RBS, Natwest, Lloyds/Bank of Scotland and Barclays - these players don't seem to put offers forward often or at all.

The wildcards are:
Tesco Bank - which has been tipped off forever for a Clubcard based switching bonus as yet has not done one except a few limited targeted schemes. The big hack a couple of months ago could have made this more or less likely.

'B' from Clydesdale/Yorkshire - this screams to me of an account without a market at the moment - none of its features stand up to comparison particularly strongly; they seem to wish to sell it based on the merits of its 'experience' - I can see this one getting a switching bonus at some point. Whether that will exclude previous Clydesdale/Yorkshire switchers remains to be seen.

Virgin Money - another account without a reason to take it, unless they make it harder to get in their lounges or something? I expect a reward would probably be paid in Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles (may or may not be a good thing, YMMV).

Yorkshire BS - I think there was an expectation that they'd roll the product they acquired from N&P out nationally, but what has so far happened is the accounts have been withdrawn from new customers. Whether that means they're not interested in Current Accounts at all remains to be seen.

Williams & Glyn - this is unlikely to appear as a challenger bank anymore but what happens to these RBS/Natwest branches could potentially create an interesting switch opportunity. Probably not until 2018 at the earliest though.

Atom - I doubt these are going to go in all guns blazing with a switch offer when they launch but one to look at in the future.

We don't know though, is the long and short of it. Banks don't put this information out there as until the offers are live it's a reason *not* to open an account now.