Santander 1/2/3 Account down to 0.60% from 3 August 2020

badger09

hollie.weimeraner said:

eskbanker said:

In any given 123 account, you'll need to have £10K earning 0.6% to offset the £60 annual charge, ignoring cashback.

So if I leave 20k in the account I earn £120 plus my cashback - the £60 fees. If I downgrade to the light I just get my fees -£12.  As my cashback is £4-50 a month I'll earn less than leaving my 123 as it is.  It's not great but unless I can get more anywhere else I'm still better off with Santander unfortunately.  (I still have my TSB accounts as well) 

But you could do better.
Downgrade to Lite, earn same monthly cashback but fees only £12 pa.
Open Halifax Reward account and choose £5 pm Reward for either keeping constant balance of £5k, or spending £500pm on debit card (hint - that's fairly easy to do). Put the rest of the Santander £20k into NS&I Income Bonds @ 1.15%

PGM1888

Here's an interesting thing for us scots, looking at Martin's comments here:
"Phone, TV & broadband cashback cut from 3% to 1%, water cashback up from 1% to 3%. By doing this twee cashback dance on both the main and Lite accounts, Santander can still call them '123' accounts, but as people on average pay thrice the bills on phone, TV & broadband than they do on water, in reality it's a cashback cut."
How can Santander still claim this to be a "123" account in Scotland as we don't have a water bill as such, it's lumped in with our council tax so really, we don't get anything at 3%  - Just a thought!!!

ZeroSum

hollie.weimeraner said:

eskbanker said:

In any given 123 account, you'll need to have £10K earning 0.6% to offset the £60 annual charge, ignoring cashback.

So if I leave 20k in the account I earn £120 plus my cashback - the £60 fees. If I downgrade to the light I just get my fees -£12.  As my cashback is £4-50 a month I'll earn less than leaving my 123 as it is.  It's not great but unless I can get more anywhere else I'm still better off with Santander unfortunately.  (I still have my TSB accounts as well) 

But you can get about £200 interest on the £20k elsewhere.
Even 12 months ago when they were paying 1.5% the lite version & cash in Marcus was the better option.