Funding the 7% first direct regular saver? P.S. Changing the standing order date will lose you cash

Yorkshire_Pud

Having opened a fd current account I’m now eligible to open their RS. They stipulate paid by monthly standing order from the fd current account on the monthly anniversary of account opening.

I’d prefer to manually fund from another bank straight to the RS. The fact you can fund less than £300 but carry any less funding over suggests manual payment can be made rather than changing the standing order amount.

Is there a workaround to only fd standing order to the RS from a first direct current account please?

PloughmansLunch

Not as far as I know, it’s even stricter than the HSBC regular saver as it doesn’t even allow transfers in from the FD current account.

wmb194

Yorkshire_Pud said:

Having opened a fd current account I’m now eligible to open their RS. They stipulate paid by monthly standing order from the fd current account on the monthly anniversary of account opening.

I’d prefer to manually fund from another bank straight to the RS. The fact you can fund less than £300 but carry any less funding over suggests manual payment can be made rather than changing the standing order amount.

Is there a workaround to only fd standing order to the RS from a first direct current account please?

No and you can vary the monthly deposit but only by changing the standing order.

AmityNeon

The only flexibility besides amending the standing order amount, is cancelling the standing order and recreating it for a date of your choosing. This allows you to amend deposit dates to the beginning of each month even if you opened the account towards the end of the month. This requires manually entering in the details of your Regular Saver as a new payee, as the First Direct interface doesn't ever show the Regular Saver as an available payee.

I suspect the account still operates within the boundaries of calendar months, that the minimum deposit amount isn't actually £25 (it could be either £0 or £25 if greater than 0), nor the maximum £300. Two deposits of £300 can be made in a month, e.g. 01-Mar-23 and 30-Mar-23, if the standing order date is scheduled for the 30th, and therefore February is skipped entirely (£0 deposited).

PloughmansLunch said:

Not as far as I know, it’s even stricter than the HSBC regular saver as it doesn’t even allow transfers in from the FD current account.

Can one-off internal transfers be made from another HSBC account into the HSBC Regular Saver? I know First Direct errors out if a one-off internal transfer is attempted (via manual entry of account details).

bristolleedsfan

wmb194 said:

Yorkshire_Pud said:

Having opened a fd current account I’m now eligible to open their RS. They stipulate paid by monthly standing order from the fd current account on the monthly anniversary of account opening.

I’d prefer to manually fund from another bank straight to the RS. The fact you can fund less than £300 but carry any less funding over suggests manual payment can be made rather than changing the standing order amount.

Is there a workaround to only fd standing order to the RS from a first direct current account please?

No and you can vary the monthly deposit but only by changing the standing order.

Is it still the case that customers can only change the standing order which FD set up by contacting them asking them to apply the change?

"To amend your standing order payment please chat with us via our App, Message Us via Online Banking or give us a call and we’ll be happy to help"

"The date of your standing order payment needs to remain the same once set up"

PloughmansLunch

AmityNeon said:

Can one-off internal transfers be made from another HSBC account into the HSBC Regular Saver? I know First Direct errors out if a one-off internal transfer is attempted (via manual entry of account details).

Absolutely, I’ve cancelled my HSBC standing order altogether as the last two dates have fallen over a weekend. I just move money directly from my Advance account into the saver.

pafpcg

bristolleedsfan said:

wmb194 said:

Yorkshire_Pud said:

No and you can vary the monthly deposit but only by changing the standing order.

"The date of your standing order payment needs to remain the same once set up"

I seem to recall a discussion about this topic a year or two ago.  Someone claimed to have managed to change the date of the standing order to early in the month but discovered that it resulted in giving HSBC or First Direct an interest-free loan until the original standing order's date!  Of course, it's all just hearsay I'm afraid. 

I've been contributing to HSBC Group regular savers for years - I've learned to accept what's offered and not to try to make changes - I apply to open the accounts two days before what I regard as the optimum date and then pump in the maximum monthly amount until such time as the HSBC/FD interest rate is no longer attractive.

wmb194

bristolleedsfan said:

wmb194 said:

Yorkshire_Pud said:

Having opened a fd current account I’m now eligible to open their RS. They stipulate paid by monthly standing order from the fd current account on the monthly anniversary of account opening.

I’d prefer to manually fund from another bank straight to the RS. The fact you can fund less than £300 but carry any less funding over suggests manual payment can be made rather than changing the standing order amount.

Is there a workaround to only fd standing order to the RS from a first direct current account please?

No and you can vary the monthly deposit but only by changing the standing order.

Is it still the case that customers can only change the standing order which FD set up by contacting them asking them to apply the change?

"To amend your standing order payment please chat with us via our App, Message Us via Online Banking or give us a call and we’ll be happy to help"

"The date of your standing order payment needs to remain the same once set up"

No, you can do it yourself. I used the mobile app but I presume this will also work in the browser; the first step is to delete the SO then NEXT DAY set-up a new SO. I found that if I tried to immediately set-up a new SO it would throw out an error message and not set one up. I kept the date the same as the original SO that FD set-up.

Stargunner

PloughmansLunch said:

AmityNeon said:

Can one-off internal transfers be made from another HSBC account into the HSBC Regular Saver? I know First Direct errors out if a one-off internal transfer is attempted (via manual entry of account details).

Absolutely, I’ve cancelled my standing order altogether as the last two dates have fallen over a weekend. I just move money directly from my Advance account into the saver.

Any standing order or direct debit will fall on a weekend at some point during a year. Was you worried about losing a few pence of interest that you cancelled it? I hope they still pay you the
7% interest at the end of the 12 month period, and not just pay you their standard savings rate by you cancelling your standing order. They told me on chat that only the amount can be changed and not the payment date and if I cancelled the standing order that it would revert to a standard saver rate.

How do I make payments into my regular saver?

Your first payment will be taken from your 1st Account on the day we open your Regular Saver Account. This will be followed by another 11 monthly payments which can only be made by standing order from your 1st Account (we will set this up for you). 

How do I manage my account?

You can view your account in our App and Online Banking. To amend your standing order payment please chat with us via our App, Message Us via Online Banking or give us a call and we’ll be happy to help.

You can change the amount of the monthly standing order between £25 and £300  (in multiples of £5) but you can only make one standing order payment to your account in any one month. The date of your standing order payment needs to remain the same once set up.

PloughmansLunch

Stargunner said:

PloughmansLunch said:

AmityNeon said:

Can one-off internal transfers be made from another HSBC account into the HSBC Regular Saver? I know First Direct errors out if a one-off internal transfer is attempted (via manual entry of account details).

Absolutely, I’ve cancelled my standing order altogether as the last two dates have fallen over a weekend. I just move money directly from my Advance account into the saver.

Any standing order or direct debit will fall on a weekend at some point during a year. Was you worried about losing a few pence of interest that you cancelled it? I hope they still pay you the
7% interest at the end of the 12 month period, and not just pay you their standard savings rate by you cancelling your standing order. They told me on chat that only the amount can be changed and not the payment date and if I cancelled the standing order that it would revert to a standard saver rate.

How do I make payments into my regular saver?

Your first payment will be taken from your 1st Account on the day we open your Regular Saver Account. This will be followed by another 11 monthly payments which can only be made by standing order from your 1st Account (we will set this up for you). 

How do I manage my account?

You can view your account in our App and Online Banking. To amend your standing order payment please chat with us via our App, Message Us via Online Banking or give us a call and we’ll be happy to help.

You can change the amount of the monthly standing order between £25 and £300  (in multiples of £5) but you can only make one standing order payment to your account in any one month. The date of your standing order payment needs to remain the same once set up.

The one I changed is an HSBC reg saver which is 5% and was originally collected near the last week of the month. On topic - I’ve left the FD saver well alone. I have quite a lot of reg savers and I prefer as many as possible to all to go out near the start of the month so I can ensure my feeder account has enough in it, and also so I don’t have to keep tweaking my spreadsheet throughout the month.

AmityNeon

Stargunner said:

PloughmansLunch said:

AmityNeon said:

Can one-off internal transfers be made from another HSBC account into the HSBC Regular Saver? I know First Direct errors out if a one-off internal transfer is attempted (via manual entry of account details).

Absolutely, I’ve cancelled my standing order altogether as the last two dates have fallen over a weekend. I just move money directly from my Advance account into the saver.

Any standing order or direct debit will fall on a weekend at some point during a year. Was you worried about losing a few pence of interest that you cancelled it? I hope they still pay you the 7% interest at the end of the 12 month period, and not just pay you their standard savings rate by you cancelling your standing order. They told me on chat that only the amount can be changed and not the payment date and if I cancelled the standing order that it would revert to a standard saver rate.

Your chat agent was either misinformed or lying. The terms of the account specifically state under what conditions the standard saver rate is applied (early closure); there has been no evidence in practice of anyone who has cancelled/recreated their standing order for a different date ever reportedly being underpaid headline interest.

bristolleedsfan said:

Is it still the case that customers can only change the standing order which FD set up by contacting them asking them to apply the change?

Yes, standing orders into the FD Regular Saver cannot be amended directly by users, even user-created standing orders.

bristolleedsfan said:

"The date of your standing order payment needs to remain the same once set up"

The meaning and implication of this clause are both vague and ambiguous, and therefore carries very little weight in practice.