Does any UK bank account offer automatic transfers?

seaurchin

Does any UK bank account offer automatic transfers? By which I mean transfers where the amount and frequency varies dependent on the end of day balance in the controlling account.

In the past I have come across this facility under various names such as; "sweeping and pooling" and "funding and creaming" but after visiting the main high street banks I am told that such facilities are no longer available.

I don't want to have to micro-manage the accounts myself neither do I want large irregular payments to fail due to lack of funds but having a large balance in a current account where interest is only accrued on the first few thousand (or not at all) is not a sensible option.

Ergates

I have a sweep set on on my First Direct account - thats on a regular basis though (i.e. once a month on a fixed date)

jonesMUFCforever

If you are rich enough for a Private banking relationship then it probably is still available.
For ordinary Joe Bloggs I can't see anything on the high street as such.

colsten

Ergates wrote: »

I have a sweep set on on my First Direct account - thats on a regular basis though (i.e. once a month on a fixed date)

One of the problems with the FD sweep is their absolutely atrocious interest rates (apart from their Regular Saver, which is still excellent, but you can't use that account for the sweep).

Unless you regularly have more than £20,000 spare cash sloshing about in your current account, you may as well use a Santander 1-2-3. For lower amounts, there are Club Lloyds, BoS Vantage, TSB, Tesco and Nationwide which all pay at least 10 times the interest your sweep in FD will yield. Between them, they would accommodate around £47,000 in savings, which is likely to be more than most people have in savings accounts. In addition, most of these also offer Regular Saver accounts with good interest rates.

Ergates

colsten wrote: »

One of the problems with the FD sweep is their absolutely atrocious interest rates (apart from their Regular Saver, which is still excellent).

Unless you regularly have more than £20,000 spare cash sloshing about in your current account, you may as well use a Santander 1-2-3. For lower amounts, there are Club Lloyds, BoS Vantage, TSB, Tesco and Nationwide which all pay at least 10 times the interest your sweep in FD will yield. Between them, they would accommodate around £47,000 in savings, which is likely to be more than most people have in savings accounts. In addition, most of these also offer Regular Saver accounts with good interest rates.

Yeah, I wasn't meaning to endorse FD's account - just meant that clearly some banks still offer some kind of sweep features.

Armorica

I'm not aware these facilities exist for personal accounts (although as another say, private banking is worth a look). They do for corporates.

There are a couple of reasons why you may not need it.
- Some banks provide text alerts (HSBC for example) when you balance falls below a certain level - you could set that up as an alert.
- Regular outgoing payments aren't just tried once - there is now a re-try system in place, at least for the largest banks. And many will text you if you don't have enough funds - and you have several hours in which you can make a transfer...with the cut-off being around 2. See https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/banking/2014/08/payment-bounced-youll-soon-have-a-second-chance-to-avoid-fees for further details.

18cc

As far as I know 'B' bank which is part of Yorkshire Clydesdale Bank or maybe Virgin Money these days who knows - anyway they offer to sweep each day an amount above a set limit into their savings account at least they did. look on google

18cc

see b's got your back about half way down

https://www.youandb.co.uk/blog/day-to-day/guide-to-using-b

mije1983

18cc wrote: »

see b's got your back about half way down

https://www.youandb.co.uk/blog/day-to-day/guide-to-using-b

when your B Current account balance falls below that, the B app automatically sweeps money from your B Instant Savings account. Handy, right?

I think that's the opposite of what the OP wants though. They are after CA to savings, while the B offering is Savings to CA.

seaurchin wrote: »

having a large balance in a current account where interest is only accrued on the first few thousand (or not at all) is not a sensible option.

18cc

I think the OP didn't want to keep a large balance in his CA but also not run the risk of payments failing. So OP could keep a low balance in CA and if any payments come in that would make the CA overdrawn then an autosweep from savings would occur.

However the savings Account rate is nothing to shout about (0.75%) but better than nothing I suppose.

Ergates

mije1983 wrote: »

I think that's the opposite of what the OP wants though. They are after CA to savings, while the B offering is Savings to CA.

It does both I think - you can set a sweep that moves money from your CA to your savings and a low balance alert that moves money from savings to your CA.

Wonder what would happen if you set your sweep lower than your low-balance-alert...