Would you recommend Santander 123 current account?

[April2003]

Does anyone have a 123 account in Santander? If so, I would be very interested in your experinece with it. Many thanks.

yes.
works.
pays tiny interest, but the best you can get.
pays tiny cashback, but the best you can get.
online banking reasonably well designed; watch for the double logout though.

only problem; Npower can't take direct debits from it. So I lost a month's interest because I didn't have two direct debits going out.

Yes, cashback on several utilitities plus our mortgage with them so cashback on that too. Amounts to about £12 a month, £2 fee. Not a massive amount but better than nothing.
Never had a problem with it.

Thanks, both. This is very helpful!
Hi CPtart, is £12 from a 2% or 3% cashback?

Yes, I have one and think its very good. I get cashback on my direct debits, food shopping, train travel and petrol. Overall I think I get between 10-20 a month cashback which is better than any savings rate.

Def worth it for an extra few quid every month. We have a Santander mortgage and get cash back on that and the 123 credit card too
We have only had it since beginning of December and have made £84

1% on water, council tax and mortgage
2% on gas and elec
3% on phone and TV packages

1% on balances over £1000
2% over £2000
3% over £3000 to max of £10,000

I get bugger all on the cash back, just about enough to cover the £2 monthly fee.
But then you get 3% interest over £3k instant access, which suits me.

I think a few other banks do similar and does someone offer 5% up to £2.5/3/5k??

I've been with them about a year and no problems.

Oh yes the credit card gives cash back as well I think? I don't have it as have the 1st issue tesco clubcard one and it works out better value for me.

Santander security is pretty poor, they don't ring you or stop your card if unusual purchases are made on your card, and really don't care tbh. Just our experience.

It's a good rate of interest as a savings account -3% which at the time was the best I could find.

As a current account it's fine - no problems and decent rate of cash back.

I switched through quidco and got money back on that too - think it was £60.

Re security, no idea on the credit card as I don't have one, but I made a £1600 bank payment last month (one off for work on the house) and got an immediate call back to confirm details then the payment was held for 24 hours for extra security checks - which I only found out when I called the bank after the recipient said they hadn't received it - because I had never paid that person before and it was a reasonably large amount.

Yes, I've got their bank account and on our gas/electricity/council tax/water and comms we get about £7 back for our £2 payment. We have no mobile phone contracts so it could be higher still. We have quite a big house, 3 kids and have quite high gas/electric costs. I have just got the credit card to buy food on and should be better off but not much. I have a fuel card and don't buy fuel direct or much from dept stores or again, it would be more worthwhile. Go online and do the calculator to see if you will save.

Incidentally, we do also use as a savings account as 3% is a good rate of interest.

I make a little money on it and I don't have a mortgage so I can't imagine how anyone wouldn't (assume their account isn't overdrawn). I'm going to look into the credit card.

Very nice staff in branch at our local one.

Just checked - I earn about £5-8 per month in a normal month vs £2 account fee. So pays for a meal out once a year in effect!