Choosing a new bank/account

Bazzalona13295

Cloth_of_Gold said:

I'm amazed that people have not just a couple of current accounts but many. I've never felt the need to have more than one and having 10 or more, as some people seem to be saying, seems like a lot of work. Why would you need so many? Why do I need more than one in fact, or at most two? I've never had any problems with the one I've got either putting money in, getting it out or transferring it. I have a bs savings account too and some bs investments, but they need little or no managing. 

I used to have two credit cards but closed the Amex one a few years ago as I was fed up of paying the annual fee. The one I have (used to be Visa but is now Mastercard) has never failed to work so I don't see the point of getting a Visa one too. At this stage in my life I just want to try and keep everything as simple a possible as I have enough going on without trying to manage multiple bank accounts and credit cards. Perhaps I'm missing something but I'm nor sure what it is.

My two main reasons for having numerous current accounts are that I've switched a few of my least used accounts so financially its proved viable.
Also as I'm with Yougov finance its quite a nice bonus getting £50 every 90 days.

Secondly the linked savers and regular savers - another bonus for having a current account. If I can get a 7 or 8% regular saver I will.

I do agree that ideally the simpler things are the better, but as I've probably benefited to the tune of £1000 (switches/Yougov alone) over the last 11/12 months  its worth having a few to me.

boingy

I've opened a few current accounts this year  because it was a requirement to get access to some regular savers and the like (eg NatWest, RBS) . Once they are done with I just park them with £1 in them until a new savings offer arrives or until need an account to switch.

friolento

Cloth_of_Gold said:

I'm amazed that people have not just a couple of current accounts but many. I've never felt the need to have more than one and having 10 or more, as some people seem to be saying, seems like a lot of work. Why would you need so many? Why do I need more than one in fact, or at most two? I've never had any problems with the one I've got either putting money in, getting it out or transferring it. I have a bs savings account too and some bs investments, but they need little or no managing. 

For me, there are many reasons for many current accounts, even if not many apply to everyone. For example:

1. resilience / redundancy, no single point fo failure; VISA and Mastercard debit cards
2. joint accounts with different parties; joint and sole accounts
3. historic reasons, such as the Virgin Money one already mentioned
4. longevity of accounts for creditworthiness reasons
5. spare accounts, ready for switch deals
6. packaged accounts for travel / breakdown / gadget insurances
7. access to Regular Saver and other savings accounts accounts
8. access to investment platform
   
9. cashback / rewards
10. currencies other than GBP

These are just of the top of my head, may be other people have other reasons, or none!. Apart from the initial set up, there is very little extra work involved with multiple current accounts. What I believe is most important is record keeping, for which there are various methods, from pen and paper to spreadsheet to personal finance software.

Regarding creditworthiness, there are no disadvantages I am aware of for holding many current accounts.

ircE

Kewsea said:

Thanks for the replies so far, some useful insights.

Just for clarity on my initial statement.  When I said I want all my affairs in one place I meant as far as my MAIN bank was concerned.  I always have, and would continue to have, spare and funded current accounts and credit card providers from unrelated institutions as a backup so no worries about risk on that score.  My questions are more around who I should use as my main day-to-day bank for bills/spending/credit card etc as that's the element I would like to have a one stop shop with.  Realise that may not suit everyone but that's what I am after.

As I suspected very mixed views on all of the main suspects  .  

I appreciate you're taking people's personal views and experiences here, but in case you weren't aware, there are independent surveys of customer experience for all the major financial institutions conducted twice-yearly for the government. The results for the last one published in August can be found here.

For example, one of the categories is for app & internet banking. After Starling and Monzo, it's first direct, Halifax and Barclays that do the best. TSB, Virgin Money, and smile's parent The Co-operative Bank come out last.

Cloth_of_Gold

Bazzalona13295 said:

Cloth_of_Gold said:

I'm amazed that people have not just a couple of current accounts but many. I've never felt the need to have more than one and having 10 or more, as some people seem to be saying, seems like a lot of work. Why would you need so many? Why do I need more than one in fact, or at most two? I've never had any problems with the one I've got either putting money in, getting it out or transferring it. I have a bs savings account too and some bs investments, but they need little or no managing. 

I used to have two credit cards but closed the Amex one a few years ago as I was fed up of paying the annual fee. The one I have (used to be Visa but is now Mastercard) has never failed to work so I don't see the point of getting a Visa one too. At this stage in my life I just want to try and keep everything as simple a possible as I have enough going on without trying to manage multiple bank accounts and credit cards. Perhaps I'm missing something but I'm nor sure what it is.

My two main reasons for having numerous current accounts are that I've switched a few of my least used accounts so financially its proved viable.
Also as I'm with Yougov finance its quite a nice bonus getting £50 every 90 days.

Secondly the linked savers and regular savers - another bonus for having a current account. If I can get a 7 or 8% regular saver I will.

I do agree that ideally the simpler things are the better, but as I've probably benefited to the tune of £1000 (switches/Yougov alone) over the last 11/12 months  its worth having a few to me.

How do you get £50? I looked at their website and it just talks about giving you points. How are these converted into payments?

AmityNeon

Cloth_of_Gold said:

Bazzalona13295 said:

Also as I'm with Yougov finance its quite a nice bonus getting £50 every 90 days.

How do you get £50? I looked at their website and it just talks about giving you points. How are these converted into payments?

Points from https://www.yougov.finance are rewarded to your https://yougov.co.uk account. After earning 5000 points, you can redeem them for £50 via bank transfer (or gift cards/reward schemes).

Lengthy discussion here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6416681/yougov-finance-bribe

To summarise:

• Link current accounts or credit cards via Open Banking to earn 500 points for each account linked. Points take about 24 hours to be rewarded after an account is successfully linked.
• You can only link a maximum of 10 accounts (for 5000 points = £50).
• Avoid savings accounts as they only reward 100 points each.
• Every 3 months, you can 'refresh' the connection for each account to earn another 500 points = £200 a year.
• Accounts must have a certain degree/frequency of transaction history to qualify for points (one transaction per month should be sufficient, but others have reported even less). Brand new accounts (opened within the past month) are also unlikely to qualify regardless of transaction history. If an account is ineligible, the system will notify you and the account will not be added (and will not use up one of your 10 allotted connections so can you safely try again later).