Do you have an Intelligent Finance Current account?

[Saracen]

I've had an IF current account for many years. Recently I've used Santander instead, which paid very decent interest. I had all my savings in it too. I kept the IF one mostly dormant.

Now I'm about to switch away from Santander, who charge a monthly fee and whose interest rates are no longer competitive. To save hassle, I planned to return to IF for current account, while putting most of my money in a higher-interest savings account.

When I went to switch, I discovered that IF stopped taking new customers years ago. I see they were asked to do this because their parent company had too big a market share.

Does that mean customer service will get worse, or that I might have to close my IF account? How has your experience been with IF lately? I'm not too bothered exactly how much interest I get on the current account, so long as it's easy to operate and customer service is okay.

Thanks @pendleflyer ! Very helpful to have early warning of this, so I have plenty of time to make arrangements.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2023/05/current-account-bank-closing-if-intelligent-finance/

no probs.
can anyone recommend a good free current account?
i need to shift.

@pendleflyer - I did an an account switch to HSBC - it was really straightforward & they were giving £200 to move accounts - they moved over all the DD's.

Maybe have a look at MSE & see who is offering invectives to switch?

thank you prosecco

I just had a letter. They do NOT offer an automatic transfer to Halifax (which IF is part of) or the parent company (Lloyds). Seems like a very poor show to me....

agree totally.
what are they playing at?

It’s quite annoying given that I was moved to IF when my last bank closed current accounts so I’ve only just finished changing my card details everywhere. But it’s a chance at least to get an account with some features as it’s nowhere near as good as my original account was.

am I right in thinking that switching bank accounts is pretty easy/fast these days?
have had several accounts but never had to hand one over to another.

Just found out about this today through a letter from IF. I guess I am in the final batch of accounts. Really gutted! I still have a large mortgage with them and the offsetting has been great. This is a real kick in the teeth because using their savings account to offset is not practical. All the money kept in current account for general spend will now earn virtually nothing vs 6% tax free currently. I think this is a cynical move by them to try and kill off their remaining mortgage holders, I mean the overheads of running these accounts for a small number cannot be large and they still need admin staff for the mortgages. I suspect mortgages will be next but I have no idea how they close those without offering the same benefits elsewhere. Not happy!

We got our letter a few days ago too, but have been told we’ll be receiving some money as compensation. My husband thinks this is to make up for the benefits to our offset mortgage we’re losing. Has anyone switched their mortgage as a result, or are you just keeping the mortgage and getting a new current account.

We eventually switched to Starling and it's so much better. Just goes to show how little IF had invested in their current accounts. The app and the functionality is amazing. I mean, even having contactless - fancy that!

It took two goes for IF to approve the transfer though, which was very much "if I can't have you, no one can."

There are lots of accounts you can switch to that will give you a decent switch bonus and also excellent high interest savings account which is linked. See Money Saving Expert.

Nobody is doubting any other account will be better. IF did not evolve since 2010 but that’s not really the issue. Does starling pay you 6% tax free interest on your entire balance completely uncapped? As a higher rate tax payer that’s equivalent to 10% return which is absolutely amazing in these times of higher interest rates. I’d take that over features like contactless and having an app any day of the week!

The cynic in me says that IF sat back when rates were near zero and hoped people would switch away naturally. It cost them little. And now within months of rates returning to 5%, and the true benefit of offsetting able to be enjoyed, they close all the accounts down. This is a cynical move designed to annoy any remaining mortgage holders so they move away and they can kill that business as well. I don’t believe it’s so easy for them to close mortgages but I’d imagine they are exploring ways to sell the book and get rid of us another way.

Percypig how much are they paying / bribing you? I‘m happy to go public and disclose that they are paying me over £1000 compensation. And yes this sounds like a lot but then I have a large mortgage and I worked out that at 5% rates and 18 years to go on my mortgage I’d have received over 10x that benefit if I kept a decent balance in my account and potentially a lot more. So really it’s a token sum for the loss of a major benefit for another 18 years.

It would be interesting to know if others either got nothing or got even more based upon their individual plans. I’m wondering if they based the compo on a fixed % or historic calculations of how much cash you had offset, or some other formula. Either way it’s still very annoying because the overheads of running these accounts can’t be that high for them and the current account offset was a key feature of the mortgage plan.

Happy to share in general terms - we got between £1500-2000, only have 7-10 years left (I can’t remember exactly) and have more in the account than the balance of the mortgage.

Starling do that. You can set up ‘spaces’ online very easily.

God ignore me, this is a Zombie!

Intelligent Finance are closing our offsetting current account too. I find this incredible and disgusted that they can do this with more than 10 years left on our mortgage. The current savings and mortgage accounts were sold as a package - known as a plan. Goodwill payments are no where near enough. I have complained and will refer to ombudsman. There must be many of us feeling this way.