Banks and Building Societies
Comments
-
All this talk of internet banking, multiple accounts etc. is all well & good but with the continuing trend of branch closures try thinking about the staff who lose their jobs.
Every time we visit our local branch we get encouraged to switch across to internet banking. Seems they want to put themselves out of work. Personally I just don't trust the security of internet banking & the recent debacle of TSB just convinces me even more to avoid it like the plague.
When we moved to the country around 14 years ago there was 5 banks within 6 miles of us, now all closed with the resultant loss of employment & inconvenience to customers. Nearest branch of any bank is now 15 miles away. Apart from the inconvenience of a 30 mile round trip there's the time & expence of the journey.
All so bankers can get their grossly overinflated, undeserved bonuses.
1 -
The fact that banks are closing is a natural consequence of online banking. Its the same in retailing. The number of staff in the High Street is shrinking as more and more people buy online. But then I expect the number of delivery drivers is increasing.
I have forgotten how long I have been using online banking it must be at least 15 years? It is sometimes difficult to remember how long you have been doing something. The only thing I go into a branch for is to pay a cheque in and as people have said on here I could do that at the Post Office I might give that a try. Fraud happens everywhere not just online you just have to make sure you have best security on your computer but even that won't stop it completely.
I have been with the same bank as long as I have had a bank account. Don't see any reason to change. As for swapping ISA's and other savings to get a slight increase in interest I just don't feel I have enough to warrant spending time doing that for minuscule extra returns as invariably you are often tied into a new investment.
David
1 -
I use my Tesco Credit card for the big bills that usually come in the winter such as car insurance. If you do this you can leave your savings intact and continue earning interest on them, Kj, provided you get interest free credit on your credit card. So you're better off this way. However, you need to make sure you pay off the balance of your credit card before the interest free period expires because once the interest kicks in, it can be an expensive way of borrowing money. If you can't pay it off, you can use balance transfer to transfer to another card with an interest free promotional period. However, it's not entirely free because you have to pay a balance transfer fee.
You can spread the payments by paying monthly by direct debit but this usually costs more. By paying the big bills through my Tesco Bank credit card, I get a huge amount of points and the facility of being able to spread the cost over the whole year by just paying off a little at a time, at no cost to me because it's interest free. Last time I paid a total of £1930 in seasonal pitch fees, for Worthing plus winter in Gatwick, using my Tesco Credit card,I gained 241 points for this spend at 1 point for every £8 spend.
0 -
Malcolm......I think you have told us all this before, and I think I commented that you need to be aware that interest free cards may not always be available, so it was good to hear that you have a plan to pay off all your borrowing before the interest free period comes to an end.
We do actually have an interest free card that we can use, so can keep the money in the bank should we wish, but that money is always there and available for repayment, so no need for balance transfers or incurring any additional costs.
As brue said, some people do get into a lot of debt with credit cards and stoozing can also be a dangerous game, hence my comment that it can be a bad idea to run up debt in this way if you do not have savings to cover it.
Personally, other than our mortgage, long since paid off, we always preferred to save for what we wanted, and of course there were no interest free credit cards way back in the 70s and 80s.
I can see that you are doing things this way out of necessity, I just hope it works out the way you plan.
0 -
Like KjellNN very little borrowing. Borrowed to buy a double bed after 3 months of sleeping on mattress on the floor in our first bricks 'n mortar. Bought a TV and stereo on interest free 12 month HP. Other loans were for 3 year old cars for work for which I received a monthly allowance and mileage payments. One unintended overdraft for a couple of months which was gratis thanks to a good bank manager relationship.
Other major loans was to pay my way through 2 six month college sessions when we were running a mobile home and I had a bedsit.
Like K I can see why you use cards as you do Malc
0 -
Even with interest free cards there is in effect a charge, over and above a standard card that you pay off monthly and has rewards. Although they are nowhere near as good as they were. I have just swapped a load of points on my Barclay card (the one that replaced the CC version) for £100 of M&S vouchers. Not sure what I spent to get them, but I would have spent it anyway.
1 -
Cant understand someone buying a product because there are free vouchers ( M & S and such)> If its such a good idea why doesn't the provider just reduce their costs by the same amount. No such thing as a free lunch. Cash is king every time and the only way to get a proper discount.
0 -
I can't see why it won't work out, Kj because I get the benefit of paying yesterdays lower price on todays increased income. It's a win win! As long as things don't go wrong i.e. loss of job, illness etc.
0 -
Yes,that is the risk you take, and why doing things this way may not be ideal. If anything does go wrong, you could end up in a good deal of debt.
Your answer has always been to hope that that does not happen. However life is not always kind to us and things can and do go wrong sometimes.
I hope that you will soon get your finances on a more even keel and be able to build up some savings as a reserve.
0 -
If you like to shop at M&S, or some of the other shops you can get vouchers for, sometimes, then getting vouchers to use there just for spending your money on your usual shopping elsewhere seems like a reasonable deal to me.
Tesco/Waitrose/Asda/Lidl Etc are not going to give you a discount for paying with cash, so why not use a Barclaycard Reward card, for example,and get a little back?
You are not "buying a product" , just using an alternative means of payment which happens to give a form of cashback.
1 -
Malcolm - the solution to a wallet bursting at the seams with plastic cards is to put te on your Mobile phone and use them from that!
You can then leave the actual cards somewhere safe and go shopping with your phone wherever the relevant shop accepts 'contactless' payment.
0 -
Having used internet banking since it was first introduced, along with ATMs, I’ve found them massively more convenient than traditional banking queues and waits. They reduce the bank’s costs too, which means that I get all of my banking services for free - where else can we get such a comprehensive service for nothing? Online shopping saves far more money than I could ever earn if I’d invested that money, then drawn it out in order to pay a local store - less car wear and tear, no parking charges and better prices generally. The premium for home delivery often works out at less than driving, and it’s greener. Then there’s Amazon Prime with its next day free delivery. Card details for commonly used cards are stored on a phone App, so I no longer need to carry them when actually in a shop. And let’s not forget expert advice and reviews for online purchases, which are often a far cry from the limited knowledge of shop staff (there are exceptions to this, and we reward such expertise by paying more). I’d be very sorry to go back to the old days of queuing, delays, limited visibility, time spent and poor advice, as experienced in my earlier life.
1 -
Contactless payment may work, but whilst it is secure for the customer and the bank, it is unsafe for the retailer who accepts it. Chip and pin transactions are pretty much guaranteed to the retailer for obvious reasons, but contactless are not. If the card is stolen / lost and used fraudulently then the retailer bears the loss. The transactions are not authorised at the time of payment, but done overnight, so fraudulent payments are carried out and then claimed back by the card supplier, from the retailer. In the long term this fraud, which has increased massively since the introduction of contactless payment, can only lead to higher prices at retailers who will seek to cover their losses.
Card companies recently tried to increase the contactless amount from £30 to £50, but the government refused permission as fraud is going through the roof.
A cynic would say that people who claimed to have ‘lost’ their card, to get a whole series of transactions for free with a little bit of thought, would see this as a golden opportunity.
Where will that leave us all ??
0 -
Internet banking is quick, easy and convenient, but it also shifts much of the risk from the bank, and onto the customer.
If you type an account number wrong, receive a hacked email from your solicitor when moving or as a confused, elderly person get duped by a phone call from your ‘bank’ you as the customer lose the money, with literally no legal redress to the bank, or anyone.
Before we had this instant system, cheques could be cancelled, returned as stolen etc, and the bank took the risk. If someone stole your cheque book, the signature didn’t match and the bank was legally obliged to reimburse you, as it was they who had paid out on a stolen cheque, even if you hadn’t notified them. Now the money is generally gone within hours at the most.
It’s a brave person who keeps significant sums of money in an account with online access nowadays.
0 -
Can my mobile phone do that, redface? I thought only an Apple Iphone could do it and only a newer version of it. My wife has an Apple Iphone that is 4 years old so I think it can't do contactless. My new phone is a moto smart phone.
0 -
I personally don't think the system is any more vulnerable now than it was in the past. It's just with our 21st century means of communication we are more aware and it is difficult for the banks to cover up.
There are a lot of things you can do to protect yourself. Every other time I go online a list comes up. The most prominent is never to give any details to someone who rings and says they are from your bank. Or respond to emails that say your account has been hacked. Why would you. We no longer get the calls in the fist place, as the phone rejects anything it does not recognise.
As far as transferring money. To move anything from an account the thief first has to get in, then be able to generate a unique code that requires use of a card.
Sort of agree about typing the account codes wrong. It's about time the banks introduced a third bit of info to be required, as the account name is apparently not verified, just the sort code and account number. A unique numeric identifier would make sense. I always transfer £1 first and get the person to verify receipt, before sending the main amount. When we sold my mums house, I checked the details I had given the solicitor several times, my wife checked them and I got the solicitor to check them.
0 -
There is Apple Pay and also Android Pay, for non iphone users, that links a card to the phone for payment at some outlets. For Apple I think it is anything after the 5s, so iPhone 6, iphone SE and above. It works OK on my SE.
I did not know either, that you could load cards on to use at any contactless facility. You would of course be restricted to only spending £30 at a time.
0 -
My wife's Apple Phone is a 5c. I don't know whether it can be upgraded to do it?
0 -
If things go wrong, I'll still receivee my pensions and monthly gift from my eldest brother. Last year when I fell and fractured my wrist, I was off work for 6 weeks and got no pay for that time from Pizza Hut, yet I still managed to keep up payments on all my debts. I was also off work for 3 weeks after my dinner2go job ended and before I started work for Pizza Hut but I still managed to get through it.
0 -
I remember it well........but now we are going well off the original topic which concerned bank branch closures.
We stay equidistant to 2 village centres where there were 3 banks in one village and 5 in the other, so a fair amount of duplication, TSB, Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale all had brances in both places, and these village centres are only about 3 miles apart.
Now Clydesdale has closed one branch, and Santander, who only have the one branch, are closing in November. We are still well served, but I would not be surprised to see further closures, most of the branches are only busy at lunch times.
0 -
There are always funds available within my credit limit or overdraft facility to tide me over when things go wrong.
0 -
Perhaps there's a future for barter.
0 -
I use up available balance on my interest free credit first which costs nothing. If that runs out, I use the Business Account overdraft facility which costs much less in interest than the personal account. The Business account overdraft alone would enable me to manage for two months without pay from Pizza Hut. Other available credit would enable me to manage a lot longer.
0 -
For us to use the bank we need to travel 36 miles round trip, the Post office is 3 days a week. A lot of the small shops don't use a card machine as it's costly to run and eats into their profit margins.
I have bought a bigger step ladder in order to get into bed, and the paper money makes the mattress softer, but the coins can be a bit lumpy.
2 -
There are people at work who live a lot closer to the edge than I do, to the extent that if their pay doesn't get credited to their account on time, direct debits bounce and the bank charges a penalty charge of £8 everytime that happens!
My cash flow position is excellent because there's money coming to me everyday in drop money and tips in addition to the four weekly pay. Even if I spend all of it, there's more money in cash coming to me the next day!
0 -
Just a couple of things to remember in your case
1 There is a lot of pressure on banks to stop the "interest free"credit cards ,as they are helping in a big way to build the mountain of debt that is getting very unstable.
2 How will drop money/tips be paid with the cashless society?
3 You are also being subsidised by the monthly "gift" from your cousin
0
