How to beat Santander 123 cut threat and negative rates

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2016

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s a well-known fact that everyone who works for a bank is a sociopath and thief who doesn’t sleep at night, not because they have a conscience, but because they’re vampires (ugly ones) feeding off the goodwill of the living.

Ok, it’s not a fact. But the way some of them behave it’s not difficult to think bad things.

This week, we expose Lloyds Bank as liars, look at just how sneaky NatWest has become with its charges and how Santander lured in millions of savers with a deal that’s suddenly proving that it was too good to be true after all.

If you’ve had a letter from Lloyds bank apologising for having to drop its interest rates because of market pressures, this is not true. Simon Lambert has checked the company accounts.

Lloyds has also this week announced the closure of branches and thousands of job losses. It blames Brexit. Really? Might it not be the rise of digital banking and the pointlessness of branches that are either shut when you need them or full of angry customers in long queues waiting to discuss the rubbish service, terrible accounts or the bank’s long history of mis-selling?

NatWest charges business customers 66p for every £100 they deposit in their accounts IN CASH, (see paragraph one), along with other sneak-based atrocities. The bankers at this one might go down in history as being first to introduce negative interest rates to the UK.

And the big one…

Santander looks set to diddle its 123 account holders out of much-needed cash by slashing the interest rate on balances up to £20,000 – shortly after increasing the monthly fee by a blood curdling 150%. Is this true and if it is what’s the best way to deal with it if you’re a customer?

Elsewhere, savings rates are now so low that an account offering an execrable 1.3% was closed after four days because it was so popular.

This might be the end of banking as we know it.

It’s certainly the end of saving.

In other news, credit card debt is a massive problem. Around five million cardholders will need more than 10 years to clear their debts. More than a million will never clear it. This affects the whole economy.

Also starring Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost, it’s actually a fun show. Listen now.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Money, brought to you in partnership with NS&I, giving you 100% security for your savings.
0:26.0	A very warm welcome to This Is Money and Share Radio podcast in partnership with NS&I.
0:35.8	I'm Georgie Frost here with you on DAB across the country, online and through the share radio mobile app every weekday, from 9 until midday, sharing ideas about money.
0:40.0	I'm joined today by editor Simon Lambert and Consumer Affairs editor Lee Boyce.
0:42.8	To go through some of the stories they've been looking at this week.
0:49.2	And worrying time for savers and for spenders, from for exhaustion to brexcuses.
0:51.6	Lloyd's acts as a further 3,000 jobs.
0:55.0	Nat West warns of negative rates and threats to Sandandes,
1:00.0	one, two, three account holders. Can we really blame Brexit uncertainty, though?
1:04.6	It seems a bit odd to me that at a time when profits are up, they're cutting jobs by, you know,
1:09.9	well, it's now got an extra 3,000 up to 12,000. Banks make their money really from the difference between what they pay depositors
1:12.2	and what they charge borrowers. When interest rates are very low, this thing called the net
1:16.4	interest margin gets squeezed and it's tough for banks to make money. But what is negative
1:21.9	interest anyway? Is it such a problem? As a business account holder and a personal account holder,
1:26.4	I pay money for my bank
1:27.9	accounts. And actually that is hugely much more than any interest I get. Well, it comes as we're
1:32.6	hearing the city watchdog has watered down its demands on providers to show how much extra
1:37.7	interest savers could get elsewhere, and a worrying number of those in their 30s and 40s, only able
1:43.4	to focus on the here and now.
1:45.5	It's much, much harder for this age group to actually make significant savings at this point in time,
1:50.2	and they're very much concentrated on just meeting the bills.
1:52.9	Also today, you probably pay yours off in full,
	...

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