Halifax £100 for almost nothing!

Well I got my my little securekey device and was waiting for my activation code that the device letter suggested would arrive in a few days but was dues to expire by the 16th. I was checking my emails and noticed that I had got an email on the evening of the 2nd Oct after I had spoken to HSBC and they had ensured that the failed part of my application for online had been pushed forward and the SecureKey H/W would arrive in 10 days. I assumed the letter from the secure superceded the email I got on the 2/10.

I checked the old email and noticed that it had the activation code so I decided to give it a go this morning. Guess what I am now in my account and have already now completed the 1750 ( I transferred it in and then back out for now) 

I also noticed that my account had received the £125 so that's good too (It came in on the 8/10 22 days after the 1st application.)

Now trying to understand their RegSaver 2.75% option. It seems I have to setup £250 in a standing order from my new HSBC account to the HSBC RegSaver. I have already done a £1750 swap from our feeder (Marcus at present) via Lloyds accounts (bit of faff but now I need to figure out how to trickle £250 a month from an interest bearing account to the HSBC account then from there to the RegSaver without losing too much interest! - not sure the faffing around is worth £44 but I'm sure I can get it to automate somehow (Marcus is now 0.7% and our worst rate - althought the NS&I will catch toward end of November!). It will work I think but timing will be key.

Thanks for that df, very useful stuff to know.

We do similar things mostly from a Lloyds feeder too, we are in Marcus which sadly has to be manual but not a prob as I have a routine at start of month to check all our commitments and pass funds down as required. Marcus is only 0.6% at the mo so not as good as your Al Rayan but every little bit does help.

Very useful to know about cross bank stuff but not noticed this anomaly recently with our Santander, Lloyds, NW etc path crossings only had one that caused delay issues but will have to go and look up my notes as to which one it is, my brain says Tesco Banks but not sure its correct.. ) I think they do weekends as well as weekdays for so's i'd need to check though. 

How do you deal with the £1750 monthly requirement back and forth i'd rather not keep much in there not earning. I was planning to just pass £10,500 in a single day manually and diary myself to do it again after 6 months but not sure I've probably done too much in a day so far getting close to the fraud triggers, perhaps.   

I've burned my fingers on NW RegSaver transactions twice (had to pay overdraft fee), since then I feed empty current accounts 3 days before SO to RegSaver is due. In'n'out SO's are fine on the same day because they all transferred on working days.

Passing 10.5k once in 6 months is sufficient to keep Advance going.  However, I don't see much point in continuing with Advance - 2.75% RegSaver is available with a basic current account. If you don't do your in'n'outs they will re-grade your account to a basic one, this shouldn't affect your RegSaver entitlement (unless they change T&C). Probably boomerang 10.5k once just in case "Advance" version becomes useful in some way, but reassess  the situation later and not repeat if there's still no point in having "Advance" version. 

 

I suspect (and certainly so in my case) it is not really about the money, more the feeling that you have got one over on the system. Its a fight you can never win but each small victory has a sweet taste that is beyond value.

I agree about the time spent sometimes, at the moment I'm spending more time on FSCS stuff but as you say at least its reliable. Still got a few K locked up in P2P but as yet we have not lost capital either.

Definitely not comfortable with funds being in P2P with the latest CV stuff heading in the wrong direction and the blue team not exactly bathing themselves in much glory!.

In the end I did similar thing to you df, Mrs aju's account in Lloyds had some spare headroom funds in it and she tends to spend on Ccards with benefits and I just sort out what account pays that so I eventually decided to set this as the feeder. I aired on the safe side setting 7 days between the S/O to HSBC current account for £250 .

Its interesting that all their documentation suggests that the initial setting of the regsaver feeder s/o value can only be changed by calling them but it looks to me like I could do this online if I had wished. 

I have to say their screens are very nice looking but not very informative and the flow in their site is not as intuitive as Uk banks. Thier staff are very helpful if my experience is anything to go by and especially since I am just using them for my own ends. Its a shame Mrs Aju herself probably will still not pass their initial criteria by hey can;t win em all.

Thanks for all your help along the way very much appreciated.

Thx dave4,

Sadly Mrs Aju will have to miss this one as we are already customers and transferred earlier in the year to pick up 125 each. (I never mentioned it as need to keep her spitits up when she cooking in the kitchen.) 

For those that may have a Virgin credit though it's a blow for those like me who don't like using toys (Phones and Mobiles) to manage our accounts as the desktop online management for Virgin Credit cards is being pulled in Jan I think it was (End of Jan in fact). After then only mobile Apps will be available.

Two million Virgin Money credit card holders forced to app banking

In our case we didn't bother with the CC options as we have enough as it is and only use them for Day to day to pickup rewards where available. Also adding too many accounts as we have over the last few months is detrimental to our credit history when they may be more offers down the line.

Bit of a concern though that this might be the way forward for other operators.