Nationwide FlexDirect Interest

starfish95

I am looking at opening a FlexDirect Current Account before the interest rates drop, does anyone know whether if I am unable to pay in £1000 on a certain month I will lose the 12 months 5%, or would it just miss that month? 

Ed-1

starfish95 said:

I am looking at opening a FlexDirect Current Account before the interest rates drop, does anyone know whether if I am unable to pay in £1000 on a certain month I will lose the 12 months 5%, or would it just miss that month? 

Just that month. But there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to if you have something to earn interest on. Even if it's only £200, transfer it between 2 of your accounts 5 times during the month.

fenwick458

I'd be careful with that £200 method, theres a chance it will get flagged up as suspiscous activity and you'll have to jump through hoops to get access again. and all for 5% of a £200 balance, not even for all of the month it would be a few pennies not worth the risk and the effort
surely the whole point of opening the account is to get the 5% interest on the £2500 balance, so i'm assuming you have that? if so then once per month transfer £1000 (of the £2500) into a different account and then a few days later (to allow for weekends) back again.
or the best way is to have another account with more that £1000 in it, and once per month do a SO for £1000 from the other account into NW and one SO from NW into the other account for £1000. that way the full £2500 is always in the flexdirect and you get the maximum interest.

General_Grant

And use/move the interest earned each month if you keep the maximum balance to earn interest.

Zanderman

As fenwick548 says above surely, if you're keeping 2500 in there, you can just move 1000 of that out and in again. 
In and out on the same day would suffice.

penners324

No need to leave £1000 for more than a few seconds. No idea why people say for a few days

soulsaver

Zanderman said:

As fenwick548 says above surely, if you're keeping 2500 in there, you can just move 1000 of that out and in again. 
In and out on the same day would suffice.

Absolutely, but OP to note, remember the £1k has to come from an external account - not another Nationwide.

fenwick458

penners324 said:

No need to leave £1000 for more than a few seconds. No idea why people say for a few days

a few days is if you set up standing orders and just leave it, you need to allow for weekends, if the other bank doesn't have the balance to cover the transfer.  yes you loose out on a few pennies of interest but you don't have to physically log on to 2 different banking platforms with a multitude of security checks every single month and do manual transfers.
also, heard of the AML checks recently? pinging money about in a quick fashion and you're likely to set off an alert somewhere, i have done once and it's a bloody pain going through all the extra checks and explaining yourself!

Zanderman

fenwick458 said:

penners324 said:

No need to leave £1000 for more than a few seconds. No idea why people say for a few days

a few days is if you set up standing orders and just leave it, you need to allow for weekends, if the other bank doesn't have the balance to cover the transfer.  yes you loose out on a few pennies of interest but you don't have to physically log on to 2 different banking platforms with a multitude of security checks every single month and do manual transfers.
also, heard of the AML checks recently? pinging money about in a quick fashion and you're likely to set off an alert somewhere, i have done once and it's a bloody pain going through all the extra checks and explaining yourself!

None of mine are automated - and I still move £1000 across several accounts at the start of the month. Used to be lots of accounts but times have changed! 
Can't see a need for automation as manual is often instant and can be moved back instantly. And you know it's happened as you did it.  And no need to worry about weekends. 
For those £1k transactions I've never ever had any AML check complications.  Higher figures yes, now and then, but easily dealt with, usually only needing to reply Yes or No to a text query or call.  £1k transactions have never had a problem.

kaMelo

fenwick458 said:

penners324 said:

No need to leave £1000 for more than a few seconds. No idea why people say for a few days

a few days is if you set up standing orders and just leave it, you need to allow for weekends, if the other bank doesn't have the balance to cover the transfer.  yes you loose out on a few pennies of interest but you don't have to physically log on to 2 different banking platforms with a multitude of security checks every single month and do manual transfers.
also, heard of the AML checks recently? pinging money about in a quick fashion and you're likely to set off an alert somewhere, i have done once and it's a bloody pain going through all the extra checks and explaining yourself!

It's not really that simple with multiple accounts though. I tried automating things and nearly came unstuck, banks don't always pay out at the same time or treat weekends the same. I simply don't have enough free cash to fund all of them simultaneously so went back to manually transferring. Once a month it takes maybe half an hour to do it all and I know I'm not going to get stung because of a standing order !!!!!! up.
Never had any AML checks (up until now at least) but I use a kind of hub method, all payments go out of and back to the same account. I've only ever heard of people having problems using a kind of daisy chain method (Bank A > Bank B > Bank C > etc and finally > Bank A) Whether this has anything to do with it or it's just luck I don't know but it's worked for me.

Ghostcrawler

Zanderman said:

fenwick458 said:

penners324 said:

No need to leave £1000 for more than a few seconds. No idea why people say for a few days

a few days is if you set up standing orders and just leave it, you need to allow for weekends, if the other bank doesn't have the balance to cover the transfer.  yes you loose out on a few pennies of interest but you don't have to physically log on to 2 different banking platforms with a multitude of security checks every single month and do manual transfers.
also, heard of the AML checks recently? pinging money about in a quick fashion and you're likely to set off an alert somewhere, i have done once and it's a bloody pain going through all the extra checks and explaining yourself!

None of mine are automated - and I still move £1000 across several accounts at the start of the month. Used to be lots of accounts but times have changed! 
Can't see a need for automation as manual is often instant and can be moved back instantly. And you know it's happened as you did it.  And no need to worry about weekends. 
For those £1k transactions I've never ever had any AML check complications.  Higher figures yes, now and then, but easily dealt with, usually only needing to reply Yes or No to a text query or call.  £1k transactions have never had a problem.

exactly I do the same, hardly takes minutes and you are sure that the transfer has happened or else you will still login to app / online banking to check if it has happened as we tend to be sure and now I am used to doing this every start of the month.