why are the banks giving freebies?

happybagger

And probably the timing is to coincide with the letters going out about the changes to Santander's 123 account, given that I would expect most in that account were 'savvy' and open to a swap bribe (me included)

cattom

happybagger said:

And probably the timing is to coincide with the letters going out about the changes to Santander's 123 account, given that I would expect most in that account were 'savvy' and open to a swap bribe (me included)

I used to have the 123 account for several years. it was great, £100 to switch. interest on your current account balance. and I think it was 3% cashback on 3 direct debits every month. all for £2 pcm. and all was rosy. 
then they stopped all the cashback etc, and said 'by the way, we are increasing the monthly charge to £5.' at that point I said thanks but no thanks, and moved to tsb. now they too are out of favour, and I'm with virgin money. 

eskbanker

cattom said:

happybagger said:

And probably the timing is to coincide with the letters going out about the changes to Santander's 123 account, given that I would expect most in that account were 'savvy' and open to a swap bribe (me included)

I used to have the 123 account for several years. it was great, £100 to switch. interest on your current account balance. and I think it was 3% cashback on 3 direct debits every month. all for £2 pcm. and all was rosy. 
then they stopped all the cashback etc, and said 'by the way, we are increasing the monthly charge to £5.' at that point I said thanks but no thanks, and moved to tsb. now they too are out of favour, and I'm with virgin money. 

Santander have never stopped the cashback element of the 1-2-3, although tweaked it a bit last year - they have reduced the interest a few times if that's what you mean perhaps?

cattom

eskbanker said:

cattom said:

happybagger said:

And probably the timing is to coincide with the letters going out about the changes to Santander's 123 account, given that I would expect most in that account were 'savvy' and open to a swap bribe (me included)

I used to have the 123 account for several years. it was great, £100 to switch. interest on your current account balance. and I think it was 3% cashback on 3 direct debits every month. all for £2 pcm. and all was rosy. 
then they stopped all the cashback etc, and said 'by the way, we are increasing the monthly charge to £5.' at that point I said thanks but no thanks, and moved to tsb. now they too are out of favour, and I'm with virgin money. 

Santander have never stopped the cashback element of the 1-2-3, although tweaked it a bit last year - they have reduced the interest a few times if that's what you mean perhaps?

thats correct. and increased the monthly charge. 

happybagger

If Virgin's account paid interest up to say 3k or 5k I might swap but no point with just 1k

MX5huggy

I’ve finally swapped mine to the lite version saves me £3 on monthly fee but based on last month I’ll miss out £1.72 of interest which will be halved (again) from April. I get about £5.50 a month in cash back. These bribes to swap to someone else aren’t big enough yet. They clearly want customers who will either rack up fees or they can cross sell to. They don’t want actual cash, and bank offering just a little interest would find the cash pouring in.

cattom

I think the no fee ones are best, which is why I'm with virgin. I don't see the point of having cash back and interest on your balance on one hand, and then on the other they take it all back via a monthly fee.