Opening a joint current bank account without switching ?

swayzak

Hello
My wife and I would like to get a joint account for bills, weekly grocery shops etc (but without having to close our respective current accounts, one of which pays the mortgage).

However most of the articles I read on consumer websites like this seem to assume the customer wants to switch accounts to the new one (rather than run a joint account in parallel to single current accounts).

Any advice on this please ?

Thanks

Teapot55

My oh had a current account which he was hardly using. It was the current account linked to his savings account. 

He added my name to the current account so that it became a joint account that we could use for household spending. The bank then sent a debit card for me to use. We each set up a standing order to pay into it from our own sole-name current accounts.

I then changed the standing orders and direct debits to the ‘new’ joint account. Obviously not as easy as ‘switching’ but we took our time and made sure to check that we hadn’t missed anything. 

eskbanker

swayzak said:

My wife and I would like to get a joint account for bills, weekly grocery shops etc (but without having to close our respective current accounts, one of which pays the mortgage).

However most of the articles I read on consumer websites like this seem to assume the customer wants to switch accounts to the new one (rather than run a joint account in parallel to single current accounts).

Any advice on this please ?

Sounds like you've been reading articles about how switching sometimes opens up incentive payments, but just to be clear, there is nothing stopping you from opening a new account without switching.

Opening another account at your current bank might be easiest in terms of minimal ID verification, reuse of existing online banking, etc, but it's also worth considering opening one with another banking group, to offer resilience in the event of technical outages or disputes.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/compare-best-bank-accounts/#cashback offers ideas about potentially suitable accounts with cashback on bills and/or direct debits....

jimjames

Just open an account with the bank you want. Just because you CAN switch doesn't mean you HAVE to switch.

moneysavinghero

You don't have to switch. You can just open a new account if you want. I have done it, it's not anything out of the ordinary or complicated.