Top Bank Accounts Discussion Area

A question about : Top Bank Accounts Discussion Area

Forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere, but does anybody have any experience of opening and operating the Abbey 8% C/A.

I also mean how is their switching service, etc, for there were many people with teething problems with the HBOS offers...

Does it run smoothly, for the idea of just paying the money in and having the interest automatically swept out every month to their 7%, sounds very convenient..

Any takers for this one?

Best answers:

• Forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere, but does anybody have any experience of opening and operating the Abbey 8% C/A.
  I also mean how is their switching service, etc, for there were many people with teething problems with the HBOS offers...
  Does it run smoothly, for the idea of just paying the money in and having the interest automatically swept out every month to their 7%, sounds very convenient..
  Any takers for this one?
• Some Feedback:
  The article should have a couple of additional categories which are not purely based on how much interest one gets or would save..
  For instance:
  First Direct: for 'best customer service' and/or if you don't keep much money in your current account
  Nationwide: if you travel abroad a lot..
  It may also be a good idea if you link to the FSA booklet on Basic Bank accounts..
  Regards
  Sunil
• I agree with the above poster.
  Also, just a little niggle, I read this article thinking, oh good, it's been updated, perhaps I will be able to find out the best bank account for me.
  Unfortunately not. I'm under 21 and so can't get the Alliance and Leicester account. I'm not a student, so I can't get a student account, and I'm overdrawn too much for the other accounts to be useful.
  Could we have a bit more of a league table, perhaps not every account on the market but at least mention the top two or three?
• Hi folks,
  Thanks for the feedback. An article about accounts for 16-21 year olds is something we are looking to do, so watch this space!
  Dan
• Glad to see Coventry First gets a mention, though I do think that for some people it has more going for it than the article suggests.
  The article recommends it only if you are "consistently" more than Ј2,500 in credit. I think that many people will earn more interest on this account even if they are only above Ј2,500 for part of the month. Abbey pays 1.65% higher interest on up to Ј2,500, but Cov First pays 6.35% higher interest on anything over Ј2,500. It depends how much above Ј2500 you are, and for how long, and how much below Ј2500 you are, and for how long.
  For instance, assume you spend only half each month with a balance of Ј3,500 and the other half at Ј500. (Obviously a very simplified scenario, but it illustrates the principle.) With Abbey, you earn Ј120 interest in your first year. With Cov First, you earn Ј127.
  You need to work out your own likely situation.
  The other quibble I would have is the recommendation to sweep excess savings into a Best Buy savings account, rather than using Cov First as a savings account. The Best Buy savings account pays 6.41%, which is so close to the Coventry First rate that it makes no realistic difference unless you have a very large savings balance. For instance, on Ј10,000, you would earn an extra Ј6 if it sat in ICICI for the whole year. But to transfer it there you would lose 3 days interest, and another 3 days when you transfer it back to your current account. On Ј10,000 you would lose about Ј12 of interest during these transfers. Unless you leave the money in ICICI untouched for a very long time, you would have been better to leave it in Cov First.
  Personally, I think Cov First is great, because I don't have to keep monitoring my balance to make sure I sweep anything over Ј2500 into a savings account.
  The 0.85% bonus is a bit misleading, because you would assume the rate falls by 0.85% after the first year. It does, but only on balances below Ј10,000.
  To me, the real drawback of Cov First is there is no chequebook. But I just keep a small balance in my Lloyds current account to cover cheques I write.
• Hello.
  A few months back I saw on this site that Halifax were offering Ј100 if you moved your current account to them, provided you paid in Ј1000 per month and used their transfer system.
  Thinking this was a good idea I applied for this and awaited their reply.
  I received a letter asking for my transfer details which I supplied. I also informed my employer and cancelled an outgoing payment from my account. ( I only had one payment in, my wages, and one payment out to another account).
  I received a letter back from Halifax stating they couldn't complete the transfer. I replied telling them I only had two items to transfer and had now done this myself. ( The end of the offer was drawing near).
  It now turns out three months down the road that although they have been happy to take my business they will not pay me the Ј100 because I did the work for them. So please be warned, DO read the small print and DON'T try to be helpful to speed things up. I phoned their customer relations Dept and asked for a copy of the 'small print' which she couldn't supply.
  The offer on the web site is now closed.
  So a word of warning. DO read the small print and DON'T try to be helpful to speed things up.
  Zork.
• I didn't mean to say the last bit twice. I must've meant it!
  Zork.
• my daughter has been persuaded to upgrade her lloyds account to use the free travel insurance,then told she can cancell the upgrade after.I am wondering if this is true,and if anyone has any experience of this insurance.Not sure she couldnt just have got basic -one trip insurance anyway-but its too late now,Also bit worried cos she is not going to europe.
• As MSE Dan is hopefully reading this thread, having started it, I'll repeat a couple of comments I have made elsewhere.
  (1) Customer service. For example, you recommend Abbey on the basis of their 8% interest offer. I would not recommend Abbey to anyone. They have had a string of problems recently, including major ebanking outages in May and the inability to send out debit cards on time. There is a post on this board about them being unable to pay interest, and I had a problem last Wednesday when their systems were down and they couldn't give me a banker's draft. Their complaints procedure is in meltdown and they are offering money to people not to take their complaint to the Ombudsman. I know all banks get it wrong sometimes but if you read this board they are getting far more than their fair share. So - if you are going to recommend Abbey's 8% offer, why not add a caveat to say that many customers report appalling service and direct people to this forum?
  (2) What's the deal like permanently? Again, you recommend Abbey because they offer 8% for a year. But other banks offer a slightly lower rate permanently. People are not going to change their bank accounts every year because it's too much trouble, whereas they will with credit cards and savings accounts. So please can we have some analysis of what the best buy is once the initial offer runs out.
• I have just opened an A&L account using in part the advice given on money saver.
  0% for twelve months is clearly a good deal, but the other charges they apply would seemingly make this a bad deal. For example they charge 50p (up to max Ј5) for using the overdraft and Ј25 each time you go over the agreed limit. So if you use the account partially in debt it won't be such a good deal.
• Can someone clarify how these current accounts (specifically Abbey and A&L) work? Are you able to keep a balance of over Ј2500 in the account and still receive the advertised rate on the first Ј2500, nominal on the rest or does it revert to a poor rate on the entire balance if Ј2500 is exceeded?
• After having a lot of unnecessary and unfair charges from HSBC, my partner and I decided to switch to A&L under recommendation from this site. It seemed almost too good to be true and it was... We were told our overdrafts would be matched if we allowed them to do our direct debit/standing order switching. I found out today, after spending an hour on the phone to the Liverpool call centre, that in fact they can't match my overdraft BECAUSE the A&L branch didn't fax our bank statements over to head office. In addition, I was also told that they would NOT match my overdraft unless I could show that I've been in credit with my HSBC account for 2 days or more in the last 3 months. (No one had previously told me this?!?!) As it's a graduate account I have not been in credit for 4 years and the whole point of switching to A&L was for the interest free overdraft.
  The overdraft matching criteria is fair enough but we were not informed of it as the branch were too busy trying to sell us loans and life insurance and trying to get us to remortgage whilst opening the current accounts for us. I'm not very impressed.
• Does anyone know of a bank where their current account allows you to draw against a cheque the moment it is put on your account (as oppose to waiting for it to clear)?
  I bank with Barclays who allow this but I want to change now they've introduced a device to log into online banking. I use my bank in a number of locations and I really don't want to have to carry it around everywhere.
  Also, importantly, I get paid by cheque on or around the 15th of each money and some payments need to be paid around that date.
• Thanks Milarky. My girlfriend thinks that Lloyds TSB might do it so I'll ask them.
  I'm not a big fan of Barclays full stop and their online service is irritating. The calculator thing is just the last straw really. I had to pay someone today for the first time and it was so much hassle. They might as well just get rid of online banking if they don't want people to use it!!