Best basic bank account for power of attorney access

New_York_No1_fan

Mum needs a current account which I can operate under power of attorney via telephone banking. Recently downgraded to Nationwide Flex account hoping I could use telephone banking to set up faster payments and move money as internet banking did not allow me my own card reader and card despite being 80 miles away. Nationwide won’t allow me to make faster payments etc over the phone and have suggested CHAPS at my local branch at £20 a pop. Service far from ideal.
When she was with Halifax 3 yrs ago I had my own bank card ( no longer available)  and could do everything over the phone. Can anyone suggest an alternative bank. At my wits end. Thank you

colsten

If you and your mum were happy with Halifax, why not switch her to Halifax again? 

https://www.halifax.co.uk/helpcentre/someone-to-manage-your-affairs/types-of-access.html

New_York_No1_fan

colsten said:

If you and your mum were happy with Halifax, why not switch her to Halifax again? 

https://www.halifax.co.uk/helpcentre/someone-to-manage-your-affairs/types-of-access.html

Sadly they no longer off the additional POA debit card and their £100 friends card is too restrictive as I need to be able to transfer funds to savings accounts.🙁

colsten

New_York_No1_fan said:

colsten said:

If you and your mum were happy with Halifax, why not switch her to Halifax again? 

https://www.halifax.co.uk/helpcentre/someone-to-manage-your-affairs/types-of-access.html

Sadly they no longer off the additional POA debit card and their £100 friends card is too restrictive as I need to be able to transfer funds to savings accounts.🙁

Why do you need a debit card to transfer funds into a savings account? More savings accounts allow deposits by bank transfer / faster payment than allow deposits by debit card. So as long as you have internet banking access to your mum's account, which you can have with POA at Halifax, and as long as you want to transfer money into savings accounts in her name (which I assume you want to do), there's no issue.

New_York_No1_fan

With nationwide u need a debit card in the card reader to create new payees and to transfer money. Can’t comment with other banks however mum doesn’t have internet so creates its own issues.

colsten

New_York_No1_fan said:

With nationwide u need a debit card in the card reader to create new payees and to transfer money. Can’t comment with other banks however mum doesn’t have internet so creates its own issues.

That doesn't explain why your mum's current account couldn't be switched to Halifax, who appear to be a lot more flexible with POA than Nationwide is.

New_York_No1_fan

colsten said:

New_York_No1_fan said:

With nationwide u need a debit card in the card reader to create new payees and to transfer money. Can’t comment with other banks however mum doesn’t have internet so creates its own issues.

That doesn't explain why your mum's current account couldn't be switched to Halifax, who appear to be a lot more flexible with POA than Nationwide is.

Thanks. I will contact Halifax tomorrow. Nationwide have been useless and not really geared up to POA especially during the pandemic.

BooJewels

I've done PoA stuff with Santander and just now with Barclays.  I had a debit card and internet access with both banks for my donors.

With Santander, as I already had a little basic current account with them, when I got it all set up, the donor's accounts got added to my own on-line access - just popped up on my own list one day.  The only limitation I found with making payments and transfers was that I couldn't do same day payments, they always had to be for a subsequent day.   But they don't actually tell you that in advance, they just tell you that you don't have authorisation to make the payment you're trying to set up.  I could do transactions at the counter using my own debit card too. 

I've only just got Barclays set up for another family member, so whilst I've logged in to the account to set up my security stuff and check it actually worked, I haven't done any transactions and don't actually expect to in the near future, as she's managing things fine at the moment.  I've registered as a precaution and at the suggestion of their fraud department and the Police, after she was the victim of an expensive scam.  It would have saved a lot of distress for her, had I already been able to log in and give her reassurance and stop her card etc. - or even just speak to them on her behalf.  We'd intended to do some of these tasks last year, but Covid put paid to that.

In neither case did the donor and account holder have internet access themselves or ever use their accounts on-line.  

If you want to do this now, be aware that the Covid situation make make the process rather drawn out and tedious - my experience with Barclays has certainly been much longer, taking over 8 weeks to get it set up - and could have been handled very much better.  

New_York_No1_fan

Thanks for BooJewels comments which were very helpful. I have opted to Halifax as they appear to still have all the ‘bells and whistles’ ie and in their words “ you can do everything like the donor. Set up faster payments , pay bills, etc etc . Using telephone and/or internet banking with own details” Also comes with own debit card.
POA all done online by uploading document. No need for mother to be involved. As I have a joint Halifax account with hubbie, things should run tickety boo.
thanks to very informative dedicated POA team, Beverley. Extremely helpful and knew what she was talking about.

BooJewels

Smashing, glad that you've got something sorted.  I've used Halifax for an estate account when the person I was managing finances for at Santander passed away - and they did set that up very easily on the phone, as we already bank there anyway - the only slight wrinkle being that my 'official' branch is 200 miles away, as the calls just went through to whoever, who was working at home!

I did chuckle a little at your comment: "No need for mother to be involved" - which is rather the point of having an LPA in place - that document is intended to represent them in whatever process it is that you're trying to manage - it is their authority to proceed.  Yet the woman I saw in branch at Barclays (they insisted that my sister and I went in to branch to set it up - the first public place I'd attended in almost a year) just couldn't grasp that fact at all.  We'd already explained at the start of the appointment (which she'd kept us waiting for 40 minutes for) that we were doing it at this time because my 93 year old aunt had been the victim of a scam - one involving calls from people pretending to be from both the Police and the manager of the very bank we were in. 

Yet, she thought it would be a good idea to excuse herself from the meeting (without explaining why) and ring my aunt to check she was happy with us setting up this PoA.  Considering that both me and the Police had told her not to talk to anyone claiming to be from the bank for the time being without a password I'd set up, she clearly wasn't too co-operative when asked for her mother's maiden name and other security information.  I thought that was grossly insensitive in the circumstances - the LPA document should have negated the need for it. 

As a consequence, the rest of the meeting didn't go too well (she didn't like any of the 14 proof of address documents I took with me, as none contained my full three Christian names, just my initials and one that contained 2 of them was 3 days too old and another contained someone else's NINO, as it was a tax refund from HMRC for my late father's overpaid tax) and we left without getting it sorted - she didn't even ask my sister for hers - just accepted her 11 year old driving licence - how many times could you move house in 11 years, yet 3 days on mine was too much!  Luckily the on-line people who had set up the appointment were a bit more pragmatic and did sort it out for me.