Top Bank Accounts Discussion Area

theshed

That may be the way to go. Some accounts require you to have DD's set up, I wonder could we get away with sending money to her savings account ?

badger09

theshed wrote: »

That may be the way to go. Some accounts require you to have DD's set up, I wonder could we get away with sending money to her savings account ?

Very few savings accounts can be funded by DD.

'Sending money to her savings account' implies the much more common method of SO (Standing Order)

drivel_head

Hi there,

I was also hoping for some advice on opening a new account - much of the advice on the site seems to relate to switching.

My partner & I are buying a property together and need to open a joint account for mortgage payments & bills. So several direct debits will be going out every month, but neither of us will have our full salaries paid into this account.

My personal account is with RBS & his is with HSBC, if that makes any difference.

From looking at the site, the Santander 123 looks like a good option, but I’d welcome any further advice.

ValiantSon

drivel_head wrote: »

Hi there,

I was also hoping for some advice on opening a new account - much of the advice on the site seems to relate to switching.

My partner & I are buying a property together and need to open a joint account for mortgage payments & bills. So several direct debits will be going out every month, but neither of us will have our full salaries paid into this account.

My personal account is with RBS & his is with HSBC, if that makes any difference.

From looking at the site, the Santander 123 looks like a good option, but I’d welcome any further advice.

Santander 123 has a £5 per month account fee, which would most likely eat up all of your cashback (and possibly more). 123 Lite has only a £1 per month fee for the same cashback and would be the better option. The difference between the two is that 123 Lite doesn't pay any interest.

An alternative would be NatWest Reward, which pays 2% cashback on utilities direct debits and charges a £2 per month fee. They seem to have a smaller list of providers with whom you can earn the cashback.


Check your providers with NatWest https://personal.natwest.com/personal/current-accounts/compare-current-accounts/supplier-tool.html and do the sums for both Santander 123 Lite and NatWest Rewards (remembering to subtract the fees).

ValiantSon

theshed wrote: »

Halifax is a young saver, as she turns 18 this will be transferred to a standard account.
Just about every bank will pay Me to transfer, but it appears there is no incentives given to those who want to open their first account. Not even a Porcelain Pig !

I don't see what the issue is. Her account will be converted to an adult account, which, I assume, will be the Reward Current Account. If she keeps that account then there is the potential to earn a small amount every month (£3) by paying in £750 per month and paying out two direct debits (e.g. mobile phone, magazine subscription.....). If this isn't of any use, then she can always apply to switch to another bank and they may or may not be interested. At the moment, I don't see any that would be likely to offer an incentive to switch an account in her circumstances. The banks are companies and it is not in their interest to offer incentives to people who they don't expect to have a reasonable chance of making more money out of.


You have, however, said that she will be in receipt of a student loan, which means that student accounts are what she actually needs to be looking at. Santander have a 123 Student Account, which gives a 4 year 16-25 railcard (worth £120 in total); 3% AER interest on balances between £300 and £2,000; and access to preferential rates on 123 World products, including their regular saver paying 5% on £200 per month. That seems like a pretty good deal to me, and better than many of the one-off switching incentives. When she leaves education she can take advantage of any switching offers available then.

theshed

I guess the days of banks falling over themselves to attract students are gone.
The Santander 123 looks like a good option.

JimmyTheWig

drivel_head wrote: »

I was also hoping for some advice on opening a new account - much of the advice on the site seems to relate to switching.

That's because that's where the best deals are.

My partner & I are buying a property together and need to open a joint account for mortgage payments & bills. So several direct debits will be going out every month, but neither of us will have our full salaries paid into this account.

You'll be funding it yourselves, however. Generally speaking this will still count as money being paid into it and so you'll meet the funding criteria.
You won't be switching this time, so even though you can tick the funding box you won't get the incentives. But this does mean that when you switch away from this bank in the future you should get a good bonus.

My personal account is with RBS & his is with HSBC, if that makes any difference.

Not really. You just need to decide whether the convenience of opening a second account with a bank you are already with outweighs the benefit of having multiple banks in case one of them has an IT failure, etc.

From looking at the site, the Santander 123 looks like a good option, but I’d welcome any further advice.

Santander 123 is a great account if you're paying bills out of it and have a large amount of cash (up to £20,000) in there earning interest. Santander 123 Lite would probably be better for a joint bills account - you still get the cashback but no interest, for a much lower monthly fee.

ValiantSon

theshed wrote: »

I guess the days of banks falling over themselves to attract students are gone.

When were those days? When I was an undergraduate there was nothing like he offer from Santander. An interest free overdraft was about all they would offer. The Santander account comes with that too (£1,500).

theshed wrote: »

The Santander 123 looks like a good option.

You're welcome!

Anthorn

ValiantSon wrote: »

When were those days? When I was an undergraduate there was nothing like he offer from Santander. An interest free overdraft was about all they would offer. The Santander account comes with that too (£1,500).



You're welcome!

As I remember it back in the day Barclays Bank and Midland Bank were competing with each other for student accounts. The offer from Midland included a cheque book and a cheque guarantee card and an Access credit card and Barclays not surprising offered a Barclaycard credit / cheque guarantee card and a cheque book. As I remember it other banks and building societies mainly offered free book tokens as an aid to study or free concert tickets or a free railcard.

Personally, I went with Barclays Bank even though they were suffering the wrath of the NUS over their involvement in South Africa.

Yup, those were the days eh.

coldjim

Hi there.

For the HSBC switch offer, do i only have to OPEN the bank account by the 30th and then i have 30 days to switch after the 30th? I have an M&S bank account with a saver that matures after the 30th, after it has,i was going to switch this to HSBC for the £150 but would have to be after the 30th (im also going on holiday on tuesday so need more time to switch it)

Any help i would appreciate. thanks.