Bank switching is back – but getting free cash has never been so hard

Up until now, it’s been a quieter year for bank switch deals in 2024.

However, all of a sudden there are potentially six to take advantage of. That’s good news for anyone keen to get free cash.

But it seems the banks are on to the smart switchers who repeatedly move from one account to the next, racking up hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds. With 
these latest offers, many banks will no longer give you the switching incentive just for changing your account with a few direct debits.

While First Direct and Lloyds have made the eligibility slightly more complicated or involved, TSB and Co-op now require you to keep using the account throughout the year to get the full amounts.

Meanwhile, Nationwide’s offer is only for existing customers. In fact, only Santander’s is closer to what we traditionally expect a switching deal to do.

It makes sense on the banks’ part and it’s likely we’ll see even more bank switch offers follow this trend – I’m surprised it’s taken some of them so long to nail things down.

Meeting the requirements

Of course, if you’re happy to use the new account as your main account, it won’t be a problem. You should be able to meet the requirements easily enough.

But if that doesn’t sound appealing, it’s still possible to hack the offers when they come around – you just need to decide if the reward is worth the effort.

If you don’t want to switch your main account you can create a ‘dummy’ one at either your existing or a different bank that you’ll use just to move. Be careful not to pick
a bank with frequent switching deals as you don’t want to be ruled out of 
a later offer.

When an offer needs you to move some direct debits, there are some quick and easy ones you can set up on your dummy account too, if you don’t have the time or don’t want to move existing ones.

Things to watch out for

For money that needs to be added to the new account, it usually doesn’t need to be in one go. So a payment of £1,500 could actually be split into smaller amounts – even the same amount added, withdrawn and then added again. Just watch out for rules stating if the money needs to stay in the account for a set time. And more and more, I’m seeing banks add debit card spending in the offer terms.

You might think that this is the easiest of the lot – simply do your normal spending with the new debit card. That’s all well and good, but if that’s at the expense of a cashback card you’ll miss out on some earnings there.

Fortunately, there are ways of ‘spending’ without actually spending – paying off the cashback credit card with your debit card for instance, 
or adding money to savings such as NS&I or Chip, again with the debit card.

Andy’s bank switch best buys

Here are the main options right now. There’s only an end date for one of the offers, so they could go at any time.

The easiest ones to get will be the offers from Santander and Club Lloyds as they only require you to deposit some cash and switch some direct debits from the old account. First Direct is similar, but you’ll also need to use the debit card five times in the first month.

Far more complicated are the offers from TSB and Co-operative Bank. You’ll need to keep the required direct debits, debit card payments and deposits going for the rest of the year to get the second part of the perk.

The Nationwide switch is relatively simple but you must have had a current account, savings account or mortgage with the building society on 31 March this year to qualify.

You won’t get these bonuses if you’ve already had switching cash from these or their sister banks.

Make sure you head to here to check which ones you’re eligible for and read all the requirements.

Follow award-winning blogger and podcaster Andy on Instagram and YouTube or visit becleverwithyourcash.com.

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