Top Bank Accounts Discussion Area

blueberrypie

LongTermLurker wrote: »

experience of both leaves no comparison - FD are good, A&L are !!!!.

Agreed.

I have no problems with the FD website, it's pretty much fully functional.

Agreed.

Also, if you make a FP into FD, the amount appears immediately - it's like dragging and dropping your money from one window to another - A&L on the other hand seem to take days for your money to be available and they don't do FP out - I can transfer from FD to Halifax and back before you can say "gizafiver"

A&L did have FPs going, but had a very low maximum of £250 and only allowed one FP to any recipient in a day. Santander does show incoming FPs instantly now, and does seem to have some transfers going by FP now, but it's seriously unreliable and unpredictable. FD is, as said, excellent when it comes to FP.

The choice between A&L/Santander and FD isn't really a choice - they're worlds apart on service and standards.

thunderbird7_2

I found first direct to be a good service, especially online - UNTIL - I came back of holiday to discover we had gone over our overdraft limit, for the first time since joining, by £150, a combination of transactions being delayed and salary being delayed as it spanned a weekend.
The charge was £50 for 2 days, when the salary went into the account.

I contacted them asking to review the payment due to the circumstances but they replied that they thought it fair and refused to reduce the charge!

Lesson learned - Never exceed your overdraft with FD.:(

I will now be looking to transfer out and reclaim £100 to get my money back.

scrat0815

I'm sorry if this question had already been asked before but I didn't find anything so far:

I'm holding at the moment two accounts with 5% on balances up to £2500 with the Santander group. One with A&L and one with Santander.

I get my salary paid into the A&L account so I don't have to worry about it's monthly funding to receive the 5% interest.

To get the 5% interest on the Santander account I have been transferring money in and out through an old account I'm holding with Clydesdale Bank.

My question is if I can also just transfer the money between the Santander account and the A&L account to meet the monthly funding criteria's or does this not count as it comes from within the Santander group? It would safe quiet a lot of time (and lost interest) as I have both of them on my A&L internet banking and can move the money around in a couple of minutes.

bottomsforever

Hi all, I have an account with A&L that was paying 6% but now it's down to 0.1%, so I need to switch. I don't earn over £23,300 but could I just withdraw the extra money each month and re-pay it back in? Does this work for First direct? Thanks a lot.

usedandabused

Trialia wrote: »

This article is no use to me at all!

I have an overdraft that's currently at -£30, a monthly income of about £550 and am 24 years old and not a student. None of the bank accounts listed are any good for me. Can anyone suggest one that might be - one that's not Lloyds? I'm looking to leave them, if I can.

natwest current account plus

kester_holmes

anyone else annoyed at the apparent new £5 per month charges for using an agreed overdraft? I presume this is in addition to the OD interest. Am I right in my understanding of it?

I earn a reasonable amount per month and use a few hundred quid of OD at the end of each month, prior to pay check clearing. As they dont pay any interest when in credit it doesn;t make sense leaving in credit all the time (and cant always!).

Presume I am better finally switching current account after 18 odd years to someone else that doesn't charge a monhtly OD charge, above the inteest? But cautious about First Directs if I got made redundant and stopped payuing a regular £1000 in per month, would they start charging the £10 per month fee?

ALso what agreed overdraft am I likely to be able to negotiate on a new bank account?

ta
Kester

atsoc15

I am thinking about opening a first direct account to use for my matched betting. Is there any stipulations such as with santander that i need to transfer direct debits etc.

My plan at the moment is to just transfer in 1500 then remove 1500 through faster payments. Is this acceptable to getting the £100 and avoiding the £10 monthly free

premierfella

atsoc15 wrote: »

I am thinking about opening a first direct account to use for my matched betting. Is there any stipulations such as with santander that i need to transfer direct debits etc.

My plan at the moment is to just transfer in 1500 then remove 1500 through faster payments. Is this acceptable to getting the £100 and avoiding the £10 monthly free

- No DD/SO transfers required;
- £1500 credit would indeed avoid the £10 monthly fee, even if withdrawn same-day;
- First Direct could reasonably argue that the £1500 credit was not "salary or income" and thus refuse to pay the £100 (although I don't know if this is the case in practice).

JimmyTheWig

premierfella wrote: »

- No DD/SO transfers required;
- £1500 credit would indeed avoid the £10 monthly fee, even if withdrawn same-day;
- First Direct could reasonably argue that the £1500 credit was not "salary or income" and thus refuse to pay the £100 (although I don't know if this is the case in practice).

I was told I would need to transfer my salary (rather than credit the account from another of my accounts) to get the £100 bonus from First Direct.
But they then gave me the £100 before I'd transferred my salary (having just credited it from another of my accounts).

So you might get lucky, but I don't think you'd have grounds to complain if they didn't pay up.
Either way, however, as a new customer I can totally say they're a good bank to be with in terms of service.

Peace-n-Love

Hi,

We are in the process of switching current accounts from Natwest to the Co-op Bank due to the higher charges -in some products-, hardly any interest on our balances and the rather annoying device you need to use with Natwest to make any transfers. Apart from that (and some issues with the bonuses RBS splash around every year), Natwest is been fairly good over the years.

Also, the idea of banking with someone a little more ethical sounds fair. We don't use the overdraft facilities much but let's say they come handy 2 or 3 times out of 12 a year.

Has anyone have something to say about the Co-op Bank? Interest on some of their credit cards look lower than most and 0% up to £200 overdraft but I'm not sure about the interest they pay on savings or current accounts.

Any comments please?