For years now we’ve benefited from bank account switching offers, and in all we’ve made several hundreds of pounds from them.
It’s relatively easy and quick – here are the latest bank account switching offers available in the UK. Please note – most of these accounts have minimum pay-in requirements and other terms. Make sure you read the fine print so that you understand what the requirements are!
Many of these accounts need to be funded with a large amount each month, and have several active direct debits, so you might wonder how you can get around all of the requirements. I’m going to show you a few ways to do this after the roundup of offers, so read on.
Offers can and will change from the time of this post’s writing.
Nationwide – £100
Nationwide’s switching offer is actually a referral offer. When you refer a friend, you both get £100 each.
You must switch to a Nationwide FlexAccount, FlexDirect or FlexPlus current account; no other accounts are eligible. At least two Direct Debits must be transferred as part of the switch.
Read the full terms and conditions here.
This is a great win-win offer, but it’s not as simple as clicking a link. If you want to be referred (we’re friends, right?), fill in the form below.
[contact-form-7 id=”5466″ title=”Nationwide”]
If you want to refer someone yourself, start with this form. You can refer up to 5 friends per year, so you may be able to earn £600 in all in one year from this offer!
Personal thoughts:
We’ve been with Nationwide for over 5 years and are very pleased with them.
RBS – £150
RBS is offering £150 to switch to them. You’ll have to switch by the 29th November, pay in at least £1500 (in total) and log in to Digital or Mobile banking by 10th January 2020.
Personal thoughts:
We used a separate RBS switching offer for £125 for their current account, and it went pretty smoothly. I can’t complain!
First Direct – £50 to join, £100 to leave
To get the £50 incentive you must open a 1st Account, switch using the Current Account Switch Service and pay in at least £1,000 within three months of opening the account. If you stick around for six months and then decide to switch away, they’ll give you £100.
This offer is for new customers only, so you can’t have been a First Direct current account customer before.
There’s a £10 per month account fee that you can avoid if you do one of the following things:
- Pay in at least £1000 per month
- Keep an average account balance of over £1000
- Have a mortgage, credit card, personal loan, savings account (but not a Regular Saver), First Directory or home insurance with them…
OR…
Just wait until after September 14th, because they’re getting rid of the fee altogether!
Personal thoughts:
We each switched to First Direct for £100 several years ago, and each switched away for £100. In all, they were great – couldn’t really fault them – but £100 to leave? Thanks, see ya.
M&S Bank – £100 M&S gift card to join, £80 gift card after a year
To get the £100 gift card, you must open a current account and switch within three months, and have at least four active direct debits on the account.
To get the £80 gift card, you must keep the direct debits active, register for online banking and pay in £1250 per month. If you’re already an M&S Bank credit card holder, the gift card goes up to £120.
This offer is for new customers only, so you can’t have been an M&S Bank current account customer before.
Personal thoughts:
None, really; this is the one we’ve never gone for.
How can you create enough direct debits for switching offers?
Most people have plenty of direct debits coming out of one single account, but what if you have more than one account and not enough direct debits to go around?
Create direct debits for savings accounts.
The Ecology BS has an Easy Access Share account which will pull a £10 minimum direct debit from your current account.
For others, see this regularly updated thread.
Paypal.
If you’ve got a PayPal account, you can use it to “pull” money from your current account into your PayPal account, and this works by direct debit. After going to “Add Money” in your account, choose “PayPal moves money from your bank account”.
 |
| Choose this option to create a direct debit through PayPal. |
I think this option is being phased out, but check to see if you can still use it to set up a direct debit on your existing account.
Credit Cards.
If you have credit cards but don’t spend on them, you’re probably missing out on a few perks.
If you only spent £10 a month on your credit card at, say, the supermarket, you could set up a direct debit from your current account to pay the card off in full every month – as long as you’d be spending as you would with your debit card, you’d be better off.
Investments and Charities.
Zopa, Ratesetter and other investment firms accept funds by direct debit, as do many charities. Check the thread linked to in the savings accounts section for updates and discussions around this topic.
How can you fund all of these accounts every month?
It’s your money, if you want to withdraw £10 from Bank A and pay it back in to Bank B the next day, you can!
For a time, I automated my payments, with £1000 moving from one account to the next in a huge circle on one day, until it landed back where it began. I don’t do that any more, but I manually log in to each account regularly and check that each one has the right amount of money in it, and has had enough money moving into it for the month.
It’s a bit long winded for some, but it does work. Doing this helped us on our way to building our deposit for our first house, and it’s going to help us on our way to paying off our mortgage early.
Finally…
That’s not all! On top of the switch incentives from the banks themselves, you can pick up even more money by applying for accounts through Top Cashback and Quidco… I mean, come on! Even more free money!
