Why did/would you switch current accounts?

Brewer21

Ditto as above, FD is and has been my main account(s) and would never switch away.
The other accounts are switching bank accounts, I currently have 2 available for that purpose one just gone (TSB) for the Halifax incentive again.👍

Spreadsheetman

My main account is with HSBC and I keep it there for the large daily limit on transactions (£25k). It makes moving money around between savings accounts relatively easy (although the rates are all bad at the moment so I'm not moving as much as I used to).

I'm going to switch my joint account away from TSB if they don't fix their poor online service soon, I was there for the interest but it's zero now so there is no reason to stay.

jimjames

Was with Tesco. Their text alerts stopped working and they couldn't/wouldn't fix it so I wasn't aware of the account getting low. Once they removed interest payments I had no reason to keep money there either.

Now switched to BoS with zero incentive to move but very happy with the switch. All went smoothly and new account is great with good alerting on payments.

I've done many switches for incentives in the past but for my main current account I ended up moving without one. How ironic is that!

MX5huggy

brewerdave said:

Switched two accounts to Santander 123 back in the day for the 3% interest and cash back

This, long term incentives that are not overly complicated to catch you out. 

armith

Switched because I prefer the word "Halifax" to the word "Santander". Easier to spell, nicer logo, like having a bank with a name that starts with the same initial as my first name, fewer key-presses to spell the name of the bank out etc.

...oh, and the £100 bonus too.  !

gsmh

I am absolutely not swayed by a switching bonus. I choose who I bank with for ethical reasons - but the bank has to be decent. A 10/10 ethical bank may be pretty poor, so I would go down the list in order of ethics until I find a decent compromise. I ditched Triodos Bank because their 'faster payments' were decidedly not faster by any measure of the word and sometimes I had to wait until the next day for the money to leave my account AND I needed to call them about it. No Apple or Google pay either. My main account, Metro Bank, is a little further down the list but suits me fine.

blue.peter

Typically, I'd switch not because I'm attracted to a bank, but because I'm fed up with whichever I currently use. It's a negative choice, not a positive one. Looking for a suitable beneficiary of my custom will come after I've already decided to switch away from the present one. This is generally when the present one has done something to annoy me. Only then will I look at switch bonuses etc. If, for example, I hadn't found banking with RBS to be such a horrible experience, I'd probably still have my account there.

masonic

I do favour all of those things, but rarely have to switch an account to get them.

About two thirds of my CASS switches have been solely for an incentive, while the other third have been to close an unwanted account because it's the easiest way to get rid of it.

IvanOpinion

kaMelo said:

IvanOpinion said:

The first time I switched account (1995) it was because the bank would not allow Mrs O to lodge a cheque (from another bank) into my account so that I could pay some bills.  At that point I switched to Abbey Nat/Santander and have been wit them ever since - it still works out the best value for my needs. 

I keep a couple of zombie accounts as well, and switch them every 12-18 months to get bonuses.  I can't be bothered over-doing this though since in many instances I consider my time to be more valuable than some of the bonuses on offer.

£100 cash bung for five minutes effort, or £1200 per hour. I don't know what you do but that's a little more than my hourly rate.

You may have to look at your time management - I have never known a transfer to take just 5 minutes - usually 20-30 minutes (start to finish) - sometimes longer, since, unlike some fools, I take time to read T&C. 

With some incentives being as low as £25-50 that is well below my hourly rate.

vacheron

IvanOpinion said:

kaMelo said:

IvanOpinion said:

The first time I switched account (1995) it was because the bank would not allow Mrs O to lodge a cheque (from another bank) into my account so that I could pay some bills.  At that point I switched to Abbey Nat/Santander and have been wit them ever since - it still works out the best value for my needs. 

I keep a couple of zombie accounts as well, and switch them every 12-18 months to get bonuses.  I can't be bothered over-doing this though since in many instances I consider my time to be more valuable than some of the bonuses on offer.

£100 cash bung for five minutes effort, or £1200 per hour. I don't know what you do but that's a little more than my hourly rate.

You may have to look at your time management - I have never known a transfer to take just 5 minutes - usually 20-30 minutes (start to finish) - sometimes longer, since, unlike some fools, I take time to read T&C. 

With some incentives being as low as £25-50 that is well below my hourly rate.

Wow, that means that with your 21.5k posts, and assuming 2 minutes per post you have lost between £35k and £107k just posting on this forum.

Speculating thatyou only decide to reply once every 8 minutes on average, this forum could owe you almost £1,000,000! 😳

Looks like kaMelo isn’t the only one who needs to look at their time management skills. 😉