Did you change your bank recently?
Actually probably most of you are aware of the hefty sign-up bonuses available if you change your bank account in the UK, but might not everyone, so yes, before Christmas is probably the best time to change your bank.
Several banks are offering cash bonuses for changing to them, the rules are easy, you haven’t had bank account with the bank (subsdiaries included) before or in the past 2-3 years time, depending on the bank offering the bonus and you use the current account switch service which means your new bank takes care of the closing of your old bank account , moving your balance and switching your payments. So you don’t need to worry and the best about it, already more than 40 bank and building society are part of this, so major banks/players all of them.
The offers are generous and probably a good side income and might manage to use this amount to buy present/experience to your loved ones in the upcoming Christmas time. For your peace of mind, all these offers I highlighted are offers of UK regulated banks so it means that your bank account is in safe hands as they are protected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to £85000 per person, per financial instituiton guaranteed.
Since I moved to the UK one of the biggest surprise was for me the free banking, free cash withdrawals, free bank transfers, easy to use direct debit system, well developed and easy to use online banking interfaces. During the years I changed banks multiple times and took advantage of the bank switching offers not just myself but my family and friends as well. It’s a sweet extra money to have and doesn’t cost much of a hassle to be fair. Coming from Hungary it hit me in the face like a surprise cause in Hungary banks are usually charging us for cash withdrawals, no switching gifts anywhere close by these amounts, no free standing orders or bank transfers, at least in the time I was living in Hungary a while ago.
I would definitely encourage everyone to take part in this, not much hassle and generous offers, bit of extra money, nice amount of £175-£150 can stretch far depending on lifestyle choices. The differences between the banks are not substantial and all of them have easy to use phone applications, nowadays I don’t think most of you visiting any branch anyway, you can do everything online or over the phone.
So let’s see the best offers out there;
HSBC offering £175 cash bonus if you switch to their HSBC Advance account, the requirements are as follows; you have to pay into the account monthly £1750 to keep the account open, it equals to a yearly salary of £25900. You have to switch to the account within 30 days and have 2 standing orders/direct debits. HSBC pays the bonus in 30 days once the account opened.
NatWest offering £150 cash bonus + 2% bank on bill until February 2020. There’s a monthly fee of £2.00 a month, but this small amount of monthly bill can be earned easily from the cashback on bills such as council tax and energy/phone, from February onwards you can earn £5.00 a month for logging in every month into your online bank. You have start the switching by 6th December in order to get the bonus, minimum monthly pay in is £1500+ per month and 2 active direct debit required. The offer available by the sister bank of RBS if you aplpy until 29th November 2019. The bonus is paid by RBS by 7th February 2020 and by Natwest by 21st February 2020.
Apply here for NatWest Apply here for RBS
First Direct (online bank belonging to HSBC group) also offers £50.00 for switching, the minimum pay in £1000 in one go to qualify for the bonus and paid within 28 days. No direct debits/standing orders required. Easiest deal around, cause it’s enough to pay in £1000 and after close the account, no monthly minimum payment required.
M&S Bank (Mark and Spencer) offering £100 gift card + £80 gift card a year after opening. This is a good value if you’re frequent in M&S shops. You need to have 4 direct debits and if you want to get the £80 gift card a year after then there’s a minimum pay in monthly of £1250, they send the gift card within a month once the bank account is opened and the second gift card sent within a month of the anniversary.
For more sweet deals and offers, visit this great website on this link. Many great deals, tips and tricks are on the site, definitely worth a look out.
One more little side tip from a professional (just kidding I swapped like 4 times max, but gonna get that hefty £150.00 for sure now), feel free to open multiple basic accounts to take advantage of all the offers out there (eg. metro bank can be opened on the same day and they issue the phisycal bank card right on the spot too).
Hope you found the article useful and enjoy the sweet cash in hand.
Your sincerely
To/Minimal
