Smart to have money in seperate accounts?

propunter99

Hey MSE,

I have done quite a lot of bank switches over the past year and now have quite a few bank accounts that still have the minimum pay in within the account.

Is this a good idea? Or a bad one?

Maybe its good to have money in accounts I dont use in case of debanking / phone stolen?

My only concern is these funds aren't getting great interest rates, I'd rather them all be in a chase 5.1%. 

I feel reluctant to put all my money in just 1 account as a safety measure, but would be interested to know how other people handle this.

Thank you.

eDicky

Yes you would be smart keep funds in some separate banks (and banking groups even), to avoid feeling foolish like the myriad of people using only one account who come here for advice when it's suddenly closed/frozen/IT failure blocked, and cannot get any of their money to pay bills, feed their kids, live normally, for indefinite days/weeks/months...

MikeJXE

propunter99 said:

Hey MSE,

I have done quite a lot of bank switches over the past year and now have quite a few bank accounts that still have the minimum pay in within the account.

Is this a good idea? Or a bad one?

Maybe its good to have money in accounts I dont use in case of debanking / phone stolen?

My only concern is these funds aren't getting great interest rates, I'd rather them all be in a chase 5.1%. 

I feel reluctant to put all my money in just 1 account as a safety measure, but would be interested to know how other people handle this.

Thank you.

I did many switches and moved the rewards to my main account however I now have 9 current account waiting for more switches. 

£10 in each doesn’t bother me about losing a minuscule amount of interest. 

badmemory

You (as in all of us) should always have money in more than one current account.  When was the last payment system crash, a week ago?  I had attempted fraud on mine normal one a couple of weeks ago.  To avoid any possible embarassment when paying I just paid with my other account for a few days until I was positive it was sorted.  It can also give easier access to their savings accounts.  Some even give better interest rates to old customers than new.

Bridlington1

First of all you don't have to compromise on interest rates by having multiple accounts, I have over 100 spread between over 60 different banks/building societies with the view to maximise the amount of interest I'm getting, the benefits of not having all my eggs in one basket was an unintentional bonus of all this.

One option for you to consider is drip-feeding the contents of Chase into various regular savers instead. See below for a list of the top regular savers (play around with the settings though so you don't miss any accounts):
https://moneyfactscompare.co.uk/savings-accounts/regular-savings-accounts/?quick-links-first=false&product-favorites-first=false

There's also the existing regular savers thread where these accounts are discussed at length:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6106986/regular-savings-accounts-the-best-currently-available-list/p1

I've got most of my non-ISA savings spread between 25 different regular savers (used to be more but they got decimated at the end of the last tax year) plus the Santander edge saver at 7% with several spare accounts on standby elsewhere. These accounts then have their nominated accounts distributed fairly evenly between Ulster, Nationwide, Santander, First Direct and TSB with linked regular savers for RBS, NatWest and Co-op thrown in on top.

I keep nothing in the current accounts though, money just bounces through them on their way to other accounts so the only cost is the minimal one of maintaining some savings accounts with the minimum balance (very small considering most let you withdraw to £1 or less)

TheBanker

I keep a bit of money in a Kroo account. The interest is not bad although not the best. But the reason I use this is Kroo debit cards are Visa. Both of my main bank accounts, and both of my Credit Cards are Mastercard. So it's a way of making sure I can still pay for essentials if Mastercard have some kind of issue.

Nasqueron

I am paid into main NW account then move it all to Kroo for the interest, move in money ahead of bills. If NW is blocked, I can use the funds in Kroo, if Kroo is blocked, I am still paid into NW, works for me.

steven141

Bridlington1 said:

First of all you don't have to compromise on interest rates by having multiple accounts, I have over 100 spread between over 60 different banks/building societies with the view to maximise the amount of interest I'm getting, the benefits of not having all my eggs in one basket was an unintentional bonus of all this.

One option for you to consider is drip-feeding the contents of Chase into various regular savers instead. See below for a list of the top regular savers (play around with the settings though so you don't miss any accounts):
https://moneyfactscompare.co.uk/savings-accounts/regular-savings-accounts/?quick-links-first=false&product-favorites-first=false

There's also the existing regular savers thread where these accounts are discussed at length:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6106986/regular-savings-accounts-the-best-currently-available-list/p1

I've got most of my non-ISA savings spread between 25 different regular savers (used to be more but they got decimated at the end of the last tax year) plus the Santander edge saver at 7% with several spare accounts on standby elsewhere. These accounts then have their nominated accounts distributed fairly evenly between Ulster, Nationwide, Santander, First Direct and TSB with linked regular savers for RBS, NatWest and Co-op thrown in on top.

I keep nothing in the current accounts though, money just bounces through them on their way to other accounts so the only cost is the minimal one of maintaining some savings accounts with the minimum balance (very small considering most let you withdraw to £1 or less)

I didn’t realise that there was even 60 banks and building societies. Go you and why not. If you can make the most out of everything on offer then great