Goodbye Intelligent Finance

Nifty_Thrifty_Fifty

I suspect many people, like us, switched their current account to Intelligent Finance when they got a mortgage, as they offered a mortgage product which is offset against your current account balance.  It's saved us thousands over the years.  So if they're now closing current accounts,  everyone with an offset mortgage will lose the offset and have to pay the full monthly mortgage interest.  I wonder if that's the motivation for closing their current accounts.  Perhaps Petar could ask them how many of their current account customers have an offset mortgage!  

pridehappy

Sounds like something Lloyds Banking Group would do nowadays, just an opportunity to move elsewhere and have a relevant current account. To be honest, never heard of Intelligent Finance before they closed. 😜 

cudofnorth

I'm with you Nifty_Thrifty_Fifty. I was using mortgage / current account offsetting, so I suspect this will force me to pay off the mortgage, as I have been stalling to avoid the paperwork and solicitor fees, but there's no point moving what's now quite a small mortgage when i have the funds to pay it off. 

eskbanker

cudofnorth said:

I'm with you Nifty_Thrifty_Fifty. I was using mortgage / current account offsetting, so I suspect this will force me to pay off the mortgage, as I have been stalling to avoid the paperwork and solicitor fees, but there's no point moving what's now quite a small mortgage when i have the funds to pay it off. 

I don't believe they'd have the right to force you to pay off the mortgage (through no fault of yours), but if that's what they had in mind then they'd need to communicate and explain this rather than expecting affected customers to work it out for themselves!

[Deleted User]

Nifty_Thrifty_Fifty said:

I suspect many people, like us, switched their current account to Intelligent Finance when they got a mortgage, as they offered a mortgage product which is offset against your current account balance.  It's saved us thousands over the years.  So if they're now closing current accounts,  everyone with an offset mortgage will lose the offset and have to pay the full monthly mortgage interest.  I wonder if that's the motivation for closing their current accounts.  Perhaps Petar could ask them how many of their current account customers have an offset mortgage!  

They agreed to sell the IF banking portfolio as part of their same reason they spun off TSB - state aid. No-one clearly wanted it, it's been closed to new business for years & slowly winding down.

Mortgages are a sticky product that they can't just close; they could move them within Bank of Scotland relatively easily as it's just a brand change but may not have offset functionality to offer.

boswalox

I can understand why IF are closing their current accounts with the cost of managing them for relatively small numbers however I wonder if they have thought it through.  Offset Mortgage customers paid substantial arrangement fees for a product which included a current account as part of that arrangement - feels fair that some of that fee should be refunded or the option to pay off the mortgage at no cost?

adindas

flaneurs_lobster said:

Don't think IF are part of CASS so can't be used for switch bonuses.

Katiehound said:

well, on their website it directs you to the CASS service- so a tad ambiguous

https://www.if.com/help-and-guidance/switch-your-intelligent-finance-account.html

No, they are not part of CASS according to this:

https://www.currentaccountswitch.co.uk/banks-building-societies/

I am not quite sure if they are using a different name in the register.

But as a general rule we do not just believe a self proclaiming statement coming from the institution own website, especially for a lesser known institution.

eskbanker

adindas said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

Don't think IF are part of CASS so can't be used for switch bonuses.

Katiehound said:

well, on their website it directs you to the CASS service- so a tad ambiguous

https://www.if.com/help-and-guidance/switch-your-intelligent-finance-account.html

No, they are not part of CASS according to this:

https://www.currentaccountswitch.co.uk/banks-building-societies/

I am not quite sure if they are using a different name in the register.

But as a general rule we do not just believe a self proclaiming statement coming from the institution own website, especially for a lesser known institution.

As shown at the foot of their pages:

Intelligent Finance is a division of Bank of Scotland plc

WillPS

Why is this still being discussed? You can see plain as day from the letter the OP kindly posted a shot of that they are advising customers to use CASS!

_wishful_thinker

Nifty_Thrifty_Fifty said:

I suspect many people, like us, switched their current account to Intelligent Finance when they got a mortgage, as they offered a mortgage product which is offset against your current account balance.  It's saved us thousands over the years.  So if they're now closing current accounts,  everyone with an offset mortgage will lose the offset and have to pay the full monthly mortgage interest.  I wonder if that's the motivation for closing their current accounts.  Perhaps Petar could ask them how many of their current account customers have an offset mortgage!  

I think it is worth saying that savings accounts offset against mortgages too. I've yet to be notified, but the MSE article says savings and mortgage accounts are unaffected. Over the years I've used several savings jars for different pots which offset my mortgage, and hope this will continue. It's not possible to open any type of account now, but it would be ridiculous to remove a method to offset your offset mortage, unless maybe they will allow new savings accounts for that purpose. I think Petar needs to do a venn diagram