Santander 123 Lite - conversion to Everyday Account from 21 August 2025?

ZeroSum

That's a bummer. Think I'd be lucky to net £1 return on the Edge account.

Might have to divvy out DDs & look elsewhere. Can get £3 from Natwest. And Halifax looking to change their reward account, might require DDs

anna42hmr

ZeroSum said:

That's a bummer. Think I'd be lucky to net £1 return on the Edge account.

Might have to divvy out DDs & look elsewhere. Can get £3 from Natwest. And Halifax looking to change their reward account, might require DDs

and rbs as well as they have the same reward as natwest too 

moneytorques

Section62 said:

Sea_Shell said:

We were considering a move away from Santander, this might just be the deciding factor.

I'd been thinking about moving my direct debits away - I'm now only just covering the fee with cashback, and with useful SMS alerts being stopped soon the risk of a DD failing due to low balance will increase going forward. As the charge for one failed DD could wipe out more than a year's net profit on the cashback the 123 (/Lite) account doesn't look anything like as worthwhile as it did in the old days.

Why not set up a transfer into the account to cover the DDs?

Section62

moneytorques said:

Section62 said:

Sea_Shell said:

We were considering a move away from Santander, this might just be the deciding factor.

I'd been thinking about moving my direct debits away - I'm now only just covering the fee with cashback, and with useful SMS alerts being stopped soon the risk of a DD failing due to low balance will increase going forward. As the charge for one failed DD could wipe out more than a year's net profit on the cashback the 123 (/Lite) account doesn't look anything like as worthwhile as it did in the old days.

Why not set up a transfer into the account to cover the DDs?

Because with the net cashback being less than £1 it didn't seem worth the hassle of managing a set of automated/future dated transfers.... and with the 123Lite ending anyway now I've saved myself the hassle of undoing whatever I'd set up.

Santander will still send an alert if a payment is being refused or if a payment would take the account into an unauthorised overdraft, but the (no longer available) customer-set low balance alert was a useful safety net.

fergie_

What accounts are folks considering as a replacement for the 123 lite?

Though its not as good as it once was, I still get about £7 net back a month. Its basically used as a household bills account so mortgage and council tax money goes in a day before and then a small balance is kept to cover energy, broadband etc each month.

friolento

I will almost certainly just continue to use my account as an Everyday account. Unless another bank will come up with an irresistable offer - a highly unlikely prospect IMO, not least because I don't expect to be able to benefit from any switch offer, and because I have used my 123 as a linked account in countless savings accounts. Even if I was eligible for switch offers, I'd preferably switch some other spare account.

GeoffTF

My Santa account is the nominated account for lots of other accounts, so I do not want to move it to another bank. Santa's computer has a record of my past behaviour, which might save me some hassle too. The Edge account would give me about 70p per month cashback net of the £3 account charge. There is free CHAPS and debit card use abroad too, which might come in useful one day.

I am not keen on using an Edge Saver. I do not want to lose access to savings when Santa has an outage. I also do not want the Saver to be drained if someone manages to hack into my Santa account. Nonetheless, I will probably open an Edge Saver. The risk is low, and it is not a big complication. That will put me comfortably in profit.

goatfaced

My account is joint with lots of shenanigans linked to it, so we will keep it as either an everyday or an edge.

I've sacrificed 2 of my cheapest direct debits for my son to get a switch bonus from Santander, but that probably excludes people in this thread because the conditions are that you can't have had an account with them in January 25. Worth a look if you have a partner or child who qualifies. They specified the 2 direct debits had to be from the list if home ones, which are the ones getting cashback for the edge account. He went for an everyday account. 

I'm going to look into the NatWest reward, but I can't get into the app which makes me worry I might have switched away from them after getting the switch bonus from them. 

RedImp_2

Well I’ve now had official notification of this , it was a document saved in my statements & documents which I saw when I went to look at my statement ( I note rubbing it in it said I’d had £3,300 cashback since account opening).
I’ll probably switch to the Edge which will at least give me some small benefit.

fly-catchers

I am assuming if you already have an Edge account used for the Edge Saver and cash ISA you can’t convert the existing 123 lite account into another Edge account so you keep its existing account number? For ease of the DD going forward. I had considered moving various DD to my Zopa account which pays 2%. But that only lasts a year and that account has been open a couple of months so probably not worth the hassle of moving them.