Santander to double 123 Lite fee and shake up current account cashback - MSE News

schiff

My account is the hub for pretty much everything and it is the link to my other current accounts (Lloyds, TSB, HSBC, FD) and through them to over 20 RSs, lots of DDs, so I'm not leaving. Changing to Lite in early August to benefit from the lower fee for a few months. It would be too much faff to reorganise my finances to such a degree. (Sant have never caused me problems with deposits to bookies, etc and though this is a small part of my life now, I don't know how other banks would view it). I'll keep about £300 in it as sometimes I need instant access without having to transfer in from Marcus say. That costs about 26p a month which is more than covered by the £4/£3 saved on the fee.

st999

Is it as easy to change to the non fee regular account as it was to change from the 123 account to the lite account?

Notepad_Phil

st999 said:

Is it as easy to change to the non fee regular account as it was to change from the 123 account to the lite account?

Yes, we did it late last night and this morning it was an Everyday account.

st999

I'll do it the 6th October, that is when my cashback is paid in and the fee taken

schiff

I'm re-posting as this thread is more relevant:

I currently have the full fat. My cash-back has arrived today as expected. My next interest is due on August 7th and on that same day my monthly £5 charge is normally levied. If I switch to the Lite version on say August 4th, will I still be charged £5? Or £1? Or nothing? I do recall that people have been through this routine.
TYIA

enthusiasticsaver

We changed from the full Santander 123 to the lite earlier on this year and will move again if they persist with constant tinkering. Living in the south west though our water bill is high so it will still be worth keeping unless they put the fee up again. 

whattochoose

I currently have the full 123 account, and had intended transferring to the "Lite" account from August when the interest rate drops to 0.60%, at the same time moving most of my money to one of the NSI acounts.
However, now that the fee for maintaining the "Lite" account is doubling, I'll be giving that a miss. I'd still like to retain some kind of Santander account, if only because of the existing direct debit payments I make, although I know I'll be forgoing cashback in the future but the amounts will be negligible anyway.
I will have no need of a Santander current account for any other reason, such as overdraft facilities. The two options which appear to be available are Santander's Everyday Current Account, or their Basic Current Account.
So long as I'm able to pay my bills by direct debit through either account, does it really matter which I choose?
Thank you.

PRAISETHESUN

whattochoose said:

I currently have the full 123 account, and had intended transferring to the "Lite" account from August when the interest rate drops to 0.60%, at the same time moving most of my money to one of the NSI acounts.
However, now that the fee for maintaining the "Lite" account is doubling, I'll be giving that a miss. I'd still like to retain some kind of Santander account, if only because of the existing direct debit payments I make, although I know I'll be forgoing cashback in the future but the amounts will be negligible anyway.
I will have no need of a Santander current account for any other reason, such as overdraft facilities. The two options which appear to be available are Santander's Everyday Current Account, or their Basic Current Account.
So long as I'm able to pay my bills by direct debit through either account, does it really matter which I choose?
Thank you.

You'll probably find that you won't get a choice - they typically only give out their basic account to people who can't get a current account elsewhere. The everyday account is probably what you're after.

TBH if the 123 Lite pays a net positive cashback after the fee I'd still stick with it over downgrading. It's only really worth downgrading it if like me you're now going to be paying more in fees that you'll get in cashback.

colsten

Be_Happy said:

Re the question of having to keep account open for Regular Saver, I think if the T&Cs say 'payments must be made from your Santander Current Account' you will have to keep it open (although it doesn't specify which current account)

Someone reports his wife had to close her RS when downgrading to Everyday

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/77421361#Comment_77421361

PRAISETHESUN

Be_Happy said:

Re the question of having to keep account open for Regular Saver, I think if the T&Cs say 'payments must be made from your Santander Current Account' you will have to keep it open (although it doesn't specify which current account)

That's fair that they require you to pay in from a Santander account and I haven't had a problem with that. The question myself and a few others have had is if we chose to downgrade our 123/123 Lite accounts to an everyday current account, which would keep the same account number and continue to make the regular payments to the regular saver, could we then still keep the regular saver open? The terms only state that you need to be a 123 customer to open the account, and nothing about needing to remain a 123 customer whilst it is open. I'll try getting Santander on live chat at some point to confirm, but if anyone else hears something from them feel free to share