Savings/investment DDs and debit card deposits- An updated list

flaneurs_lobster

Thanks for this @Bridlington1

I suspect that a list of all charities that accept donations by DD would be pretty much most charities but fwiw I have DD's for a couple of quid paying

The Trussell Trust
British Red Cross
RNLI

PRAISETHESUN

Good thread thanks There's also Revolut which allows top ups by debit card, although they have horrible customer service and I have seen a few threads in the past where people have had big issues trying to get their money out after using them. Caveat emptor!

Bridlington1

PRAISETHESUN said:

Good thread thanks There's also Revolut which allows top ups by debit card, although they have horrible customer service and I have seen a few threads in the past where people have had big issues trying to get their money out after using them. Caveat emptor!

Thanks for the information, this has now been added to the list.

Hattie627

Miscellaneous accounts that let you pay in by debit card:- If you have an Amazon account online, you get an online gift card account which you can manually top up by debit card (minimum £1) as often as you like. You can also set up an automatic debit card top up of as little as £1, which can be taken daily (or less often, as you choose). This is useful if you need to clock up a certain amount of individual debit card transactions in a month. The gift card balance can be used for Amazon purchases made on your account.

redux

Most investment platforms and credit cards accept one or both methods

One investment platform I'm on, with a SIPP pension and ISA there, allows payments into a separate cash account aside from SIPP or ISA contributions, and the monthly charge can be taken from that rather than rely on the change from reinvestment of dividends and maybe occasional single share sales, so I sometimes add a couple of quid.

Katiehound

Other charities that accept £2 pm DDs are:
Water Aid
Christian Aid
RSPCA
AgeUK

Dogs Trust- minimum £4

and if you pay tax please remember to add Gift Aid

ircE

Thank you for making this post!

My small contribution: 

Cruse, a charity which offers support to the bereaved, takes DDs from £1 and they set mine up within 1 week.

As per usual - please donate more if you can, cover the processing payments if you can, add Gift Aid if you can, etc...

There are usually various offers that are easily findable with a quick search for newspaper/magazine subscriptions, including cashback offers, for people who want to do something different. Though some of these can be difficult to cancel!

I remember other forumites have also mentioned lottery subscriptions which might be fun, though I have no idea about that kind of thing...

Anyone mind explaining why the saving/investment accounts taking payments by debit card are so notable?

Edit: removed charities that I thought took £1 DDs but do not.

ForumUser7

ircE said:

Anyone mind explaining why the saving/investment accounts taking payments by debit card are so notable?

Halifax Rewards Account has an option to spend £500 each month on debit card (and stay in credit and pay in £1500) to get £5 credit each month

datz

Bridlington1 said:

Vanguard:

Initial deposit: £500

Direct debit amount: Unknown

Multiple monthly DDs: Unknown

Direct debit date: Unknown

Account opening: Online

Management: Online

Remarks: n/a

It's been a little while since I took advantage of them, but from memory...

• £500 initial deposit is not necessary - you can side-step that and open an account with zero - use the regular deposit option to open and then cancel that regular deposit (aka direct debit) once opened.
• Minimum direct debit amount can be set at £0.01 (this is the same minimum for debit card payments)
• You can avoid investing and just buy the "cash" option - it will just sit as uninvested cash in your account.
  
• You can only link one nominated account, so only one direct debit mandate, but you can set up multiple payment plans under it.
• Iirc, vanguard will bundle any direct debits due on the same day together (also applies if any payments are delayed by non-working days), so space them out sufficiently (i'm sure someone will confirm if this is still the case)
  

datz

Bridlington1 said:

Miscelanious DDs:

Charities (please be nice)

Credit cards

Credit unions

Paypal

I had mentioned this in the old thread, but using HMRC for direct debits has advantages (for example, via self assessment).

• You can set up an unlimited number of direct debit mandates.
• You can set them up with an unlimited number of current accounts.
• You can customize the payment plans under each direct debit mandate (one-off / regular).
• Once a DD mandate has been set up, you can then delete the payment plan(s) under it and just leave an empty direct debit mandate sitting on your account (but remember that inactive mandates eventually get removed).
• The minimum payment amount if £1

If you are someone that has to pay tax, for example via self assessment, then this is an easy way of meeting all direct debit requirements. Also worth noting that the vast majority (I won't risk saying all) of switching incentives require an active direct debit mandate - pulling a payment through the mandate is not necessary, so the empty mandate option above works well (I most recently used it with the TSB switch and stay offer).

This, of course, assumes you can tolerate the terrible experience that using HMRC's website is...