The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

happybagger

If people want a load of current accounts to avail of the offers, why not? If the banks don't want people to open them, then they can always make the offers available without needing a current account!

For the same reason people will open several easy access accounts, and several fixed rates.

Fine, if you're keen on 'inertia', that's your choice.

But for the rest, as for "playing the system", the banks create the system, so let them play it.

castle96

I've had my (first ever) Barlays a/c for 60 yrs. Has had £1 in it for years. They have/had nothing special to entice me. Have got dozens of a/c. All for various reasons/rate. Assure you I am not taking the  !!!!!!   

ColdIron

techno12 said:

You should only have one "current account" really IMHO -

Would you also contend that people should only shop in one supermarket and not avail themselves of cheap bananas on offer down the road?

would be too much faff for me to keep track of it all to gain a few quid sign up!

Different strokes for different folks

flaneurs_lobster

techno12 said:

The people who have multiple concurrent "current accounts" are just playing the system and taking the !!!!!!. You should only have one "current account" really IMHO - would be too much faff for me to keep track of it all to gain a few quid sign up!

I guess it depends on whether you consider £700 "a few quid", that's the amount I've made in the last 8 weeks by "just playing the system and taking the p1ss". I too have a current account I've had for 28 years that gets used for my "proper banking", and in the last two months I've opened 8 more and closed 4 of them.

Having spent the majority of my working life in Financial Services I am only too pleased to be relieving some of my previous employers of some not hard-earned.

Off topic, this has nothing to do with Top Easy Access Accounts but I have opened 5 of those in the last 3 months as well.

Section62

techno12 said:

The people who have multiple concurrent "current accounts" are just playing the system and taking the !!!!!!. You should only have one "current account" really IMHO - would be too much faff for me to keep track of it all to gain a few quid sign up!

Your opinion would be bad advice.

Having only one current account makes someone more vulnerable to problems if that bank's (or banking group's) IT system has a problem, or if the account is suspended for some reason.

A second (or more) current account with a different banking group give people financial flexibility, so if one account is affected, they have another to enable them to continue transacting.

Your opinion is also contrary to the policy various banks adopt of allowing multiple current accounts to be held by one customer - e.g. BoS are quite happy for customers to have three Vantage accounts each, Nationwide allow members to be named on a maximum of four current accounts.  These aren't secret numbers that forum members have discovered by "playing the system", the banks themselves openly publish them.

Nick_C

I do wish MSE had not closed down the Moneysavers Arms.  Idle chit chat has taken over what should be useful and informative threads, which are regularly taken off topic and lose their usefulness.

Is a little self restraint too much to ask for?

There is always mumsnet if you want a blether.

baldeagle09

Soulsavers 'Top Easy Access Accounts Ranked - No Chat' is brief, excellent and informative.

This thread is the opposite and will be avoided at all costs.

andyhicks88

techno12 said:

Interesting reading people chopping and changing current accounts.

I've been with Barclays for 35 years (they got me with the SuperSaver kids thing back in the 80s) and would never consider switching as I'm used to it - my daily financials run through it, I'm used to the app and sort code numbers etc can't bother to change. Inertia...

Liking their current chart topping 5%+ on £5k Rainy Day Saver.

The people who have multiple concurrent "current accounts" are just playing the system and taking the !!!!!!. You should only have one "current account" really IMHO - would be too much faff for me to keep track of it all to gain a few quid sign up!

You very much shouldn't have one current account. What if there is problem with that bank? The app or online banking is down?  Card payments are down for some reason?  It's very much advised that you have at least 1 back up current account with some money in in case these issues arise and you need some money. 

AmityNeon

Band7 said:

The operative then tried to explain to me again why Santander allegedly doesn't recommend using Open Banking for shifting money between accounts. She claims the incidence of fraud is much higher with Open Banking than it is with Faster Payments, and there is allegedly also no way for Santander to check that the recipient account is in the same name as the Santander account.

An uninformed agent who likely knows little about open banking. I recall questioning the Halifax fraud department regarding open banking from a holistic perspective of account security, but they were clueless because open banking was a separate department. They're obviously 'trained' on a specific set of tasks, going through a script of checkboxes to satisfy unblocking criteria, but if you ask them anything outside their purview it's just a crapshoot.

With Open Banking, not only do transactions require Strong Customer Authentication, payee details are pre-populated and cannot be changed. The chances of fraudsters being partners with an Open Banking payment provider are as likely as (or even less than) fraudsters obtaining a Service User Number to become a Direct Debit originator; it's easy to clone a website, but good luck trying to connect and integrate it (or even a fraudulent app) with Open Banking. Also, in cases of funding your own accounts, you usually have access to and control of the recipient account being paid (in order to initiate the payment request), whereas with standard bank transfers, there is a chance you have neither (even with positive Confirmation of Payee checks).

It's frankly ludicrous that a bank representative would make such an inaccurate, though likely off the cuff, claim that fraud incidence is much higher with Open Banking. Both standard bank transfers and Open Banking utilise the Faster Payment Service; on a basic level of conceptual abstraction, Open Banking simply implements additional layers of regulation and security before a Faster Payment is actually made.

S_uk

techno12 said:

You should only have one "current account" really IMHO - would be too much faff for me to keep track of it all to gain a few quid sign up!

Just because it's "too much faff" for you doesn't mean it's too much faff for others..