M&S Bank closing all current accounts

born_again

ctdctd said:

Alexland said:

The current account market must be bad if there is no provider willing to buy or take on the business.

It's run by HSBC group - surprised they didn't offer a switch to HSBC or First Direct.

Except that M/S has it's own banking licence.
HSBC just supply the systems they use.

MDMD

I rang M&S, they said if I request a switch they will close the MS, move the money to the current account as if it had been open all year and then transfer the funds across. Pity there are no switch offers I qualify for, although I’ve got a TSB, Monzo and Metro account now surplus to requirements.

where_are_we

I will keep my M&S current account ticking over with minimal balance and 2 very small PO DD`s running until end of July in the vain hope of a switch offer possibly requiring 2 DD`s.

colsten

Alexland said:

The current account market must be bad if there is no provider willing to buy or take on the business.

More likely the current account business wasn't very profitable for them. In addition, it would cost a small fortune to sell/transfer to another provider. I bet it's much simpler and less costly to just let people close or move their accounts themselves.

pollypenny

Wow. That was a surprise. I thought it was a scam, so checked here.  

EarthBoy

colsten said:

Alexland said:

The current account market must be bad if there is no provider willing to buy or take on the business.

More likely the current account business wasn't very profitable for them. In addition, it would cost a small fortune to sell/transfer to another provider. I bet it's much simpler and less costly to just let people close or move their accounts themselves.

I don't know if it would cost that much, especially as M&S Bank is owned by HSBC already.  
Back in the 1980s the Britannia Building Society used to offer current accounts, but they sold that part of the business to a bank, -I can't remember if it was Barclays or the Co-op Bank, and transferred all the accounts over.  Presumably the buying bank paid the costs.  On the other hand when the Norwich & Peterborough Building Society stopped providing current accounts they just closed them all, the same as M&S are doing now.   Maybe M&S don't have enough current accounts to make it worth the hassle of selling or transferring them?
An alternative route would have been to do the same as Intelligent Finance and Cahoot, -close the business to new customers, but keep existing accounts open.

Sea_Shell

Maybe they've realised that too many customers were just using them for access to the regular saver!!

Now they're regretting being so generous...maybe?

I wonder how many customers genuinely use M&S as their main current account, rather than a handy "add on".

Browntoa

Reading the terms and conditions of the HSBC £125 switch if you opened the m&s account before 2018 then it looks like you qualify for the switch bonus

I'm not sure if you wait until may that avenue would remain an option .

colsten

Browntoa said:

Reading the terms and conditions of the HSBC £125 switch if you opened the m&s account before 2018 then it looks like you qualify for the switch bonus

I'm not sure if you wait until may that avenue would remain an option .

True - though a fair number of M&S current account holders will already hold an HSBC account, too, for the same reasons they are holding the M&S current account 

colsten

I just remembered, there is another current switch offer which one or two people may still be able to go after: Virgin Money.
The offer is not for 'real' money but for 15,000 Virgin Red points, which may or may not turn you on. Gregg's sausage roll fans could be set for life, or at least until the end of summer, with 75 sausage rolls. Or you could learn how to make chocolate truffles, exchange them into wine etc etc.