Lloyd's withdrawing free accounts for community groups

TheBanker

penners324 said:

retiredbanker1 said:

.....And they were a bu**er  to run - normally elderly signatories who died but other signatories did not inform bank etc then find they cannot access account due to not having sufficient signatories on the account - the mandate they gave the bank-- rant over!
Here's to an increased dividend in 2025.

The legacy banks make it very difficult to update those mandates and very difficult to make any changes to the way they're set up.

Maybe the new fees will mean these accounts start to pay their way, and therefore facilitate investment in more modern systems (generally this would mean adapting Business Banking systems rather than building new from scratch, I think). So it might be a good thing that these accounts start to generate an income stream. It might even lead to other banks realising this doesn't have to be a loss-making offering so there might be more competition in future. 

boingy

For those of you arguing that the banks shouldn't be expected to offer community account for free because they make no money, presumably you think that all personal current accounts should also have fees, because those make no money either.

WillPS

boingy said:

For those of you arguing that the banks shouldn't be expected to offer community account for free because they make no money, presumably you think that all personal current accounts should also have fees, because those make no money either.

They're loss leaders tho - they create a relationship which will result in other, more profitable, products and services being taken up.

Community organisations aren't likely to be taking out mortgages.

TheBanker

boingy said:

For those of you arguing that the banks shouldn't be expected to offer community account for free because they make no money, presumably you think that all personal current accounts should also have fees, because those make no money either.

Banks wouldn't be keen to bribe new customers with £150+ bonuses if they didn't make money from current accounts.

Current accounts might not make much money directly, but they provide custoemers to for bank's credit cards, loans, mortgages, savings/investments and insurance products.

And actually current accounts can make money. Ones with a fee usually do. Ones without a fee probably just about break even if they're managed online and there are some debit card transactions generating interchange revenue. 

Ergates

boingy said:

For those of you arguing that the banks shouldn't be expected to offer community account for free because they make no money, presumably you think that all personal current accounts should also have fees, because those make no money either.

There's a notable difference between "Shouldn't be expected to offer something for free" and "should charge for it".

See if you can work it out.

Chieveley

I too had this letter. If you are a registered charity, which we are, then call as per the sentence near to the end of Lloyds letter. They will verify you are a trustee on the charity commission website and I have been allowed to keep our treasurers account. Like someone mentioned , if you have a signatory that dies they may threaten to close the account. I had asked Lloyds to divulge all known signatories when I took over the account. They didn't and we had one non signatory but she some "rights" that came to light when she passed.