Top Bank Accounts Discussion Area

thriftydave

Thanks for all the responses. Some ineteresting ideas.

On balance I think we will switch to the Halifax Reward Account to manage our DD's and SO's. As this shouldn't go overdrawn we will benefit from the £5 monthly interest and incur no costs. This will be a joint account.

Stick with the First Direct Acount we are in the process of opening into which my wife's monthly salary will be paid. This means that there will not be problem paying in £1500 a month. This will also be a joint account as this is the account we will use for day to day expenditure so both need a debit card for purchases and cash withdrawals.

Open the Standard Life Direct Access ISA< but mindful of the comments about it being a variable rate and switching when appropriate.

I'm knocking the idea of an A&L account on the head!

thriftydave

stphnstevey

With many accounts now requiring a min deposit per month and those with multiple accounts cycling money through them, just wondering how many times per month people are managing to cycle the one amount of money.

ie how many times they are able to cycle the standard £1000 in one month

It would be interesting to know the dates you have selected and an example. Thanks

td_007

stphnstevey wrote: »

With many accounts now requiring a min deposit per month and those with multiple accounts cycling money through them, just wondering how many times per month people are managing to cycle the one amount of money.

ie how many times they are able to cycle the standard £1000 in one month

It would be interesting to know the dates you have selected and an example. Thanks

Depends on the a/cs. To be fair I use more than £1K for funding. For e.g. I have 2 SOs setup from Abbey on the 1st of the month to transfer £500 to the 2 A&L a/c. On the 4th a SO each from each of the A&L a/c transfer £500 to the Abbey.

Then another cycles through each of Halifax, goes into Lloyds and the goes into another Abbey.

And few other such cycles...

blueberrypie

stphnstevey wrote: »

With many accounts now requiring a min deposit per month and those with multiple accounts cycling money through them, just wondering how many times per month people are managing to cycle the one amount of money.

ie how many times they are able to cycle the standard £1000 in one month

It would be interesting to know the dates you have selected and an example. Thanks

I cycle £1k through six Halifax Reward accounts (partner's and my own), two LTSB Vantage accounts, two A&L Premier Direct accounts and a First Direct. The A&Ls have a £500 requirement so the £1k gets split there, and another £500 gets sent through FD because its requirement is £1500, but part of that is then left there to fund my Regular Saver ISA and part of it goes to yet another bank into my kids' accounts, as their monthly pocket money. A&L is done last because their FP implementation is woeful.

I don't have a specific date to do it, I just do it when the money is available, but I have it set up on my to-do list to appear at the beginning of each month, then it's crossed off once done. I do it on-line, rather than by SOs - with FPs, it takes me less than an hour, and I also reconcile all of my own records for every account during that time, so the actual transferring probably adds 5-10 minutes.

Rah

Hello,
just thought I would share my experience - I currently have a Halifax reward account which I use to get my salary paid in to and most of my bills and everything paid out of. I decided to open the A&L current account to get the £100, then planned to close the account after 3 months and go back to using my halifax one.
problem is, I have now had a letter from A&L saying they have written to my old bank to get details of all my direct debits etc but they have not had a reply, therefore they cannot do the switching.
They have already opened the new account for me, sent me a card and everything, but if I don't use the switching service i'm not eligible to get the £100 so there is no point keeping the account.
Just thought I'd warn others about this, it's worth a small hassle to get £100 but not worth the bother to not get anything!
also I wonder will my 'free' travel insurance still be valid if i keep the account open but never use it - i.e. no payments go in or out?

I never go overdrawn ever and always pay in over £1000 per month so I think i'll stick with halifax in future, not THE BEST financially but i have always had good service from them and £60 a year is not bad.

onlypaddy

Rah wrote: »

Hello,
just thought I would share my experience - I currently have a Halifax reward account which I use to get my salary paid in to and most of my bills and everything paid out of. I decided to open the A&L current account to get the £100, then planned to close the account after 3 months and go back to using my halifax one.
problem is, I have now had a letter from A&L saying they have written to my old bank to get details of all my direct debits etc but they have not had a reply, therefore they cannot do the switching.
They have already opened the new account for me, sent me a card and everything, but if I don't use the switching service i'm not eligible to get the £100 so there is no point keeping the account.
Just thought I'd warn others about this, it's worth a small hassle to get £100 but not worth the bother to not get anything!
also I wonder will my 'free' travel insurance still be valid if i keep the account open but never use it - i.e. no payments go in or out?

I never go overdrawn ever and always pay in over £1000 per month so I think i'll stick with halifax in future, not THE BEST financially but i have always had good service from them and £60 a year is not bad.

Weird, this is the third instance today where I have read about Halifax not providing DD and SO details.....or at least A&L using that excuse!

As for the secong bold bit (above) you have to have £500 going into the account every month or you will be charged a £5/month underfunding fee.

rb10

See here: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=28768049&postcount=15

Might be worth phoning Halifax to see when/if they received the request from A&L.

pete_

Has anyone else here been turned down for the A&L current account with £100 incentive?

I was turned down twice the last time they were running the promotion - I know I have a good credit rating because I have recently secured a mortgage on it.

My banking record is impeccable so I don't know what their problem was?

vicstuff

Can any one provide information about the legal status of the questions banks ask when one opens a bank account, or switches from one account to another?
From memory nearly all banks ask questions about income etc - I'm not happy with this as I don't know how far this information is transferred from one institution to another - or within institutions that come under the same umbrella.
Three questions emerge:
1.Eg. If one has a Santander mortgage which required a big income on getting the mortgage and you later open a bank account with one of their subsidiaries such as A&L with £100 cashback incentive, but declare your income is then substantially less than when you took out your mortgage, does this information get held on a central database and then later have an adverse effect ..eg possible later needs to negotiate a new mortgage?
2. Are the banks legally obliged or entitled to this information?
3. Is a customer in legal trouble if they say they have more or less income than later materialises to be the case?
Some of the best deal accounts out there look good for bank switching, and some people seem to advocate switching to get advantage from cash incentives on offer, (even if this means taking money out and then paying it in again later to satisfy minimum monthly deposits to gain advantage from cashback offers). This suggests that they are declaring more income than they actually have, in order to benefit.
I am confused about the legal status of declaring more income than one has, and equally about the position if one declares a lower income than one previously had - and potential impact on later applications for mortgages!

Any help appreciated

JimmyTheWig

Declaring more income than you have sounds like fraud to me, so be careful.
I don't know why you would want to declare _less_ income than you have?

Generally current accounts don't have minimum income requirements but they may have minimum monthly credit amounts. I would imagine you can declare a low income and still meet the credit requirement by moving money around.