people still messing with loads of accounts?

Flobberchops

As above - using Halifax as an example, it was a worthwhile deal when £5 a month, but if I didn't already have everything set up I wouldn't bother for the paltry £2 a month now.



I don't have 20 accounts (more like 3) but I still shuttle money through them to get some free cash - it's now just part of my routine in the same way I make purchases through cashback sites or spend a minute looking for promo codes first. It really doesn't expend much time or energy at all and the net benefit to me runs comfortably into the hundreds of pounds a year.

RG2015

joeblags wrote: »

i am curious though if there are people still messing around opening accounts to gain 0.1% over another account they had money in... honestly the hassle isn't worth it at all. if you have enough money to fill 20 accounts then you cant be short of the £2 a month from all the accounts

I suspect that many people share your view to some extent as the banks keep reducing their interest rates on savings and fringe benefits.

However, there are still some that in my opinion are worth having.

TSB 3% on balances up to £1,500.

HSBC for the 5% regular saver which I just got before it was reduced to 2.75% although that is still good.

First Direct for the regular saver initially 5% and now 2.75%

Santander 123 Lite for the cashback and 3% regular saver (now down to 2.5%)

NatWest for monthly rewards and refund of Reward Credit Card fee of £24 (still gives 1% cashback on supermarket spend).

colsten

RG2015 wrote: »

TSB 3% on balances up to £1,500.

HSBC for the 5% regular saver which I just got before it was reduced to 2.75% although that is still good.

First Direct for the regular saver initially 5% and now 2.75%

Santander 123 Lite for the cashback and 3% regular saver (now down to 2.5%)

NatWest for monthly rewards and refund of Reward Credit Card fee of £24 (still gives 1% cashback on supermarket spend).

Add to that M&S regular saver, now 2.75%

Coop £5.50/mth

Barclays Blue Reward at least £11 (only at least £4 for new ones, though)

Plus a large number of Regular Savers, paying anything from 2% to 3% AER.

And not to forget cashback offers that were available for Raisin (still are), HL Active Savings, AA and Aldermore, most of which require the money to be tied up for 6-12 months.

Plus there is very good reason to keep an old Nationwide FlexAccount, as well as any savings accounts that pay higher interest for long-standing customers (albeit these are now as rare as hen's teeth). Many people will also have maturing fixed term accounts, or the beloved NS&I savings certificates, and some have cash ISAs for good reason. I have at present still well over 60 accounts, including 27 current accounts, and not counting Investment accounts. There are only 2 dormant accounts - Monzo and Fineco - that I am not actively using, or that don't provide me with access to Regular Savers. On top of those, I also have Transferwise and Revolut, as well as several credit cards. It goes without saying that most of those accounts are essentially self-managing as any required regular transfers happen with SOs which don't take much time to set up.

And oh yes, I do need the money these accounts make, they don't give me any thrills, I am not messing about with them, and they are not my hobby.

RG2015

masonic wrote: »

I wouldn't open new accounts for benefits of less than about a fiver a month, and have been making use of switching incentives to reduce the number of existing accounts I hold with benefits below that level.

I still have a use for an account that allows me to deposit the occasional cheque using a mobile app, of which there are few options, accounts with interest rates above 2%, and will always seek to retain at least two accounts with independent back-end systems.

Other than TSB are there any current accounts offering more than 2% (excluding Nationwide which is only for one year)?

Also can you explain independent back end systems, and which banks currently share these?

YorkshireBoy

RG2015 wrote: »

Also can you explain independent back end systems, and which banks currently share these?

I'm not sure who masonic was referring to, but Halifax, BoS and Lloyds share an LBG back end system.

RBS and NatWest (and possibly Ulster?) too I believe?

I'm not sure about HSBC and FD/M&S?

RG2015

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

I'm not sure who masonic was referring to, but Halifax, BoS and Lloyds share an LBG back end system.

RBS and NatWest (and possibly Ulster?) too I believe?

I'm not sure about HSBC and FD/M&S?

Thanks.

Is the relevance here that if if there is an outage all those sharing a back end system may be affected?

YorkshireBoy

RG2015 wrote: »

Is the relevance here that if if there is an outage all those sharing a back end system may be affected?

Yes, as per recent (a few weeks ago?) events at LBG.

Bigger issues have occurred previously at RBSG.

I don't remember any such issues at HSBC though.

DavyJones61

I have few accounts at the moment but have been told by my wife to cut them back as she says if I go before her, we are in our 70's, she want's a simple banking life.

So at the end of April I have to not open the Santander 123 lite account I was going to change my 123 account to, transfer the DDs to the account where our pensions are paid in, lose £58 a year.

I can open a savings account for the £18,000 + the TSB account that is in the 123 account so gain £250 odd.

The Halifax reward account, where I have 2 credit card DDs which I spend £1 a month on, lose £24 a year and have to cycle £1,000 through.

The TSB account lose £44 a year.

And get rid of the 6 credit cards I use to generate DDs.
So I probably won't be all that worse off, after all if you have over £20,000 in savings what's a few quid a month for a simple life?

masonic

RG2015 wrote: »

Other than TSB are there any current accounts offering more than 2% (excluding Nationwide which is only for one year)?

I'm not aware of anything beyond TSB that would fit the bill, no. I'd be willing to open a current account if it was required in order to hold a savings account paying a better rate of interest, providing the difference was material. I'm not tempted by the HSBC group regular savers post rate drop, so things could get very simple for me towards the end of this year.

Also can you explain independent back end systems, and which banks currently share these?

YB has answered this, but I'll add that I'm assuming HSBC/FD/M&S have shared infrastructure. I believe there was some discussion on this recently that suggested as much, but wasn't conclusive. I'd find it hard to believe they were completely independent.

wmb194

HSBC and FD went down simultaneously in December 2019. No mention of M&S Bank.

https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/34998/hsbc-and-first-direct-downtime-continues-into-the-morning