What makes you switch account?

B0bbyEwing

I'm not talking about a current account that offers £150 for switching from your existing account so if that's your response then it just shows you didn't read the OP at all as this is the opening line.

Your savings account will (should) have some kind of interest rate. What makes you switch from one to another out of curiosity (and I don't imagine that the real answer is "one that has a higher interest rate" - as I suspect most of you wouldn't switch your account if it was 1.50% but another was offering 1.51%. Some will but I imagine most wont be bothered with the hassle for 0.01%).

I'm currently with Chase on 1.50%. At the time it was market leading but I've learned in the past few days it's way behind.

What I do like about it though is that you can have a number of these (so if you wanted one for say birthday money, one for say treats money etc etc, you could group them all off).
I can also pay non-Chase accounts direct from it, which you can't do with a lot of savings accounts - it has to go direct to the linked current account and THEN on to where you want it going.

I don't know what the per month difference is say between 1.50% and something like 2.00% based on a round figure like 10k or even 1k. but I'd suspect it's nothing to get excited over.

On the one hand it bothers me not having nearly the best rate but at the same time it's like a never ending pursuit, constantly chasing for what will probably work out to be a few pence or a couple of quid. I did it when I was looking to put a deposit down on a house - I chased every last penny and would complain over any little thing that I felt worth complaining over (Santander were always good for a nice apology handout as they made so many errors) - purely to get maximum in to a deposit.

But these days my spare time is more important to me so I don't jump ship so freely.

What would there need to be for you to change your account?

t1redmonkey

For me and my current circumstances, I'm opening a new account if I see one that's 0.1% better than what I currently have access to.  However that's mainly because I'm sitting on a fairly large cash sum due to selling my house a few months ago and not having bought a new one yet.  I'd probably have a different attitude if I had a much lower amount of money in cash.

Emmia

The rate would need to be substantially better for me to switch.  You could spend your life/free time moving money in and out of accounts earning pennies more - but what's the cost of your time for the admin involved?

The only other things that make me leave is terrible customer service, or fraud on my account - which happened once, and I took all my money out of that institution as soon as they'd refunded me.

Brie

I'm currently looking to switch as I have what are effectively 2 current accounts but no savings accounts at all.  One current account doesn't pay interest and the other just .35% so tiddly.  Neither of them has all that much in them right now but I'm about to sell a lot of shares (yes rotten timing) and want to put the cash somewhere for a bit while I figure who/where to invest it.  So I'll be looking for a main stream bank (in that it's a name I know reconise than something random just online but with a high rate) and as high a rate as I can get for a set relatively short time.  So 3 months at ??? 3%??  

B0bbyEwing

Emmia said:

The rate would need to be substantially better for me to switch.  You could spend your life/free time moving money in and out of accounts earning pennies more - but what's the cost of your time for the admin involved?

This is where I'm currently at. 

I'm trying to reduce the time I spend each month cycling money etc. hence my other thread. It doesn't look like I'll be able to do that so I'm going to automate anything that can be & anything that can't be will have to be manual. 

It was starting to get depressing how little free time I had once you take out sleep, work, prepping & making tea & having a shower. It would often be 30mins-1hr left in the day, then bed & repeat. My only free day being Sunday but by then I have all this stuff I wanted to get done Monday-Saturday but I'm that wiped out it doesn't even get done Sunday, but that's a whole other story & this is a banking forum.

When I was looking to put a deposit down I didn't care. I'd chase £1 because £1 is £1 more towards a deposit & every penny counted. All in all, all that chasing gained me a few grand & I don't regret any of that.

Emmia said:

The only other things that make me leave is terrible customer service, or fraud on my account - which happened once, and I took all my money out of that institution as soon as they'd refunded me.

I had fraud once. My Nationwide card was cloned & something purchased in America where I'd never even been. At that point I'd never been abroad.
They sorted it & gave me my money back. I was happy with the way it was handled so stayed

mebu60

Sometimes it's just mood combining with the time to do it. Other times it's principle that spurs me on when a provider is being tardy against the market. 
I have a reasonable amount still in cash from downsizing a few years back but even so I do question myself sometimes as to the net financial benefit after tax of switching. Which brings me back to sometimes it's just mood . . . . . . . . 

Daliah

The Chase savings rate was great for a couple of months but has not been so since early June. Whilst I agree that the SO, DD and FP functionality is a nice feature, the FP-to-any-account functionality is "great" for fraudsters who want to clear out your Chase savings account.

It's easy to work out what the difference between a 1.5% and a 2% account is. It's much the same as the difference between a 1% and a 1.5% account - -  which initially attracted so many people to Chase savings.

With Chase saving, you don't now have nearly the best rate for an instant access account. When I last checked, there were over 30 better paying accounts available to everybody.

Chase are now relying on people's inertia and hoping that people won't find it worth their while moving their money to better paying accounts. That's copying the behaviour of other big banks, who collectively are sitting on billions of people's savings and cashing in on the interest they don't pay. It's an individual decision whether you want to play their game. I don't, as a matter of principle. My money got moved out of Chase in June. Unfortunately I couldn't do it all at once, due to the Chase daily withdrawal limit, but all in all it took no more than 10 minutes, and that was going via my current account at another bank.

B0bbyEwing

Daliah said:

 has not been so since early June. 

Again, back when I was putting a deposit together, I was spending time checking quite regular what the best rates were.

These days my spare time is more valuable to me than a few extra quid.

Some of you may be fortunate enough where 0.5% difference equates to quite an amount and I get the vibe from many of you that that's the case, but it's not the case for me. I'm not going to make a few extra £100 from switching to 0.5% higher. 

These days I check in on the rates as and when (I get the urge). As such, I miss offers. There's been a few times I've missed out on current account switching offers in the past say 12 months, but it is what it is. There's a split second where I feel oh if only I'd looked at this thread the other week, but as I say, it is what it is. My spare time means more to me. If I hit one of these notice threads early enough then great, if I don't then I don't.

So they may have been off the mark since June, but I've only recently checked it out as like I say, I no longer keep tabs. I check as and when. 

Daliah said:

It's easy to work out what the difference between a 1.5% and a 2% account is. It's much the same as the difference between a 1% and a 1.5% account 

That's where I'm afraid we have to disagree. 

It's not much the same at all in my opinion. It's exactly the same  

Question is what it equates to in real terms .... £money£.

Daliah said:

With Chase saving, you don't now have nearly the best rate for an instant access account. When I last checked, there were over 30 better paying accounts available to everybody.

Chase are now relying on people's inertia and hoping that people won't find it worth their while moving their money to better paying accounts. That's copying the behaviour of other big banks, who collectively are sitting on billions of people's savings and cashing in on the interest they don't pay. It's an individual decision whether you want to play their game. I don't, as a matter of principle. My money got moved out of Chase in June. Unfortunately I couldn't do it all at once, due to the Chase daily withdrawal limit, but all in all it took no more than 10 minutes, and that was going via my current account at another bank.

Yeah I know it doesn't take all that long to make the switch, I've done it enough times. 

Right now though, my Chase savings account is helping automate my cycle somewhat. If I make a change then I may be totally unable to do that, depending on what the next account offers, which could put me back to being fully manual, which I'm actually trying to move away from.

Everything is an individual case. Some (maybe most?) only care about the rate, bar absolutely nothing.

Which is where I was, once upon a time. Not these days though.

km1500

I have only switched current accounts once in my life (that was not related to switching bonuses) and that was when I got totally fed up of lloyds blocking payments to new savings accounts and at the same time sometimes blocking Internet access

I got so fed up with it that I opened a first direct account and a nationwide account and switched and I have not had any problem since with either of these banks

kuratowski

Interest compounds - like the fees on investment accounts, the rates appear to be small but over the decades it mounts up.  By giving up 0.50% per year over 10 years, you are losing out on over 5%.

For savings you're not planning to use in the next few weeks, it really makes sense to shop around; do so at least annually, even if it's not worth checking every day.

Unless you have so much money already, you simply don't care about another 5%.

Daliah

It takes literally seconds to check for the best available offers. https://moneyfacts.co.uk/. Some people prefer to subscribe to newsletters, such as the MSE one, or the ones from Savingschampion or that Andy Money guy (name escapes now).

Whichever way you do it, it certainly takes less time than posting multiple lengthy posts on MSE  .

For the avoidance of doubt: everybody can do whatever they feel is right for them. So you don't have to justify what you do any more than I have to justify what I do, even if our approaches appear to be diagonally opposite.