Santander 123 Account - money in

Spriggan

Hi all,

I'm looking at opening a joint Santander 123 account lite with my partner to use for household bills, specifically because of the cashback. In the T&Cs it says:

The £500 minimum monthly payment doesn’t include refunded amounts from your Santander debit card or amounts transferred into the account from another Santander account in your name (including any joint accounts).

Both of us have personal Santander accounts, so am I reading this correctly that there's no way for us to put money from our current accounts into the joint account to count for the £500 minimum? How are we supposed to get money in there? (Both of us are keen to keep our salaries paid into our own accounts.) I wondered if technically setting up standing orders would count? I feel like we would be being penalised for already being Santander customers!

Thanks!

N1ckS

I would just open an account with another bank and transfer the money out and back in again.

Spriggan

That's true, although part of the reason for sticking with Santander on this was to cut down on the level of admin!

N1ckS

I think it's worthwhile opening a joint account but I don't see any easy way round this short of withdrawing cash from the sole accounts and paying it back into the joint account. With app based banking it takes seconds to transfer from one account to another or just setup a standing order.

soulsaver

Always best to have a back up ac with a different bank in case of system outages a la TSB debacle..
and use that 2nd to do a £500 hokey kokey.. or a £250 double hokey.. in out, in out..

18cc

Rather than opening a Santander joint account you could for example investigte opening a NatWest joint account as they do pretty good cashback deals as well

xylophone

Open a joint Classic Plus account with TSB and set up a SO from each of your personal accounts (amounting to say at least £520 a month in total) to that account.

Set up a SO from TSB to the Santander Lite joint account of at least £500 a month.

eskbanker

Spriggan wrote: »

Both of us are keen to keep our salaries paid into our own accounts

If one of you has their salary paid into the joint account, followed swiftly by a standing order shifting it (less the amount that he/she would be contributing to the bills account) to their own sole account then this would achieve the same net result, while satisfying Santander's minimum monthly funding requirement.

Maybe not ideal, but possibly better than going via cash or another bank, although I do agree with others that having money in another bank reduces risk....

Terry_Towelling

eskbanker wrote: »

If one of you has their salary paid into the joint account, followed swiftly by a standing order shifting it (less the amount that he/she would be contributing to the bills account) to their own sole account then this would achieve the same net result, while satisfying Santander's minimum monthly funding requirement.

Maybe not ideal, but possibly better than going via cash or another bank, although I do agree with others that having money in another bank reduces risk....

This would solve the joint account pay-in issue but it might then mean that person no longer meets the pay-in requirement for their own personal Santander account (if that is an issue, of course).

A way to resolve that would then be to have a same-day swap of £500 between the individual accounts.

eskbanker

Terry_Towelling wrote: »

This would solve the joint account pay-in issue but it might then mean that person no longer meets the pay-in requirement for their own personal Santander account (if that is an issue, of course).

It's a fair point, but if OP and partner are already paying for the privilege of two 123 Lites then there are probably better ways of arranging their finances than adding another one to the mix!

Based on OP's reference to looking at a joint 123 Lite "specifically because of the cashback", I imagine that their sole accounts wouldn't be 123s with the minimum monthly funding requirement, but no doubt OP can clarify....

gt94sss2

Spriggan wrote: »

Both of us have personal Santander accounts, so am I reading this correctly that there's no way for us to put money from our current accounts into the joint account to count for the £500 minimum?

In practice, Santander won't care that the £500 is coming from another Santander account.