I wonder how many people are really affected by it. Can’t remember the last time I had a cheque never mind being for £500+
I know I have had just one in the last five years (though highly likely a lot longer).
Used my Starling account to upload it. Smooth process.
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Seems I’ve come across another quirk of FD. My mortgage application has been accepted and it seems they don’t use direct debit, but instead request the monthly payments are made by Standing Order! Not really an issue, but thought it was a bit strange!
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This is the same with their savers.
Their back end must be so antique to have to work in this way.
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I had a largish loan from first direct 5 years ago and fd used Direct Debit to repay it.
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Size of balance? Mine was >£7,500.
It sounds a bit like their regular saver, which is also a custom non-editable standard order and also requires payments in to come from your First Direct current account (which I think their mortgage does).
I suppose a standing order to one of their accounts is treated as an internal transfer by them, so doesn’t cost them anything in terms of payment scheme fees - whereas Faster Payments or Direct Debits would cost them a small amount and extra processing.
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Interesting - yes, they are very rigid for the regular saver for some reason. You are allowed to change how much you pay in from month to month, but can only do so by manually requesting that they edit the standing order for you (it’s impossible to do it yourself)!
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I’m not sure what I was surprised about more, that fDesign was still going or that for a bank that seems to struggle to do things like transaction notifications it’s asking about microchip implants
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Can you choose where you have it? 
Imagine.
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You can amend standing order values via the FD app.
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It is a strange setup on their part and I hope they improve these silly bits.
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Someone at First Direct must have read 
to suggest the possibility of microchip implants.
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I just found out I got £2.80 in cashback on my gold credit card for foreign currency purchases in August from a promotion I had no idea was in effect 
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Weirdly FD will allow the mortgage to be paid by Standing Order from a non-FD current account. They asked where I would be making the payments from and I said my main Lloyds account. When the advisor was reading one of their scripts, they said something along the lines of “as you’ll be using an account with another bank you will be responsible for setting up the standing order and adjusting it if the payments changed” etc.
So I said that in that case I’ll just have the mortgage come out of my FD account if it means it’ll be simpler and by Direct Debit. That’s when they said it would still be by Standing Order with a FD account, but they would set it up and would adjust it themselves.
I had a Personal Loan with them about 8 years ago, but can’t remember if that was SO or DD for me.
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This is a bit unusual given that I think having a 1st account is a requirement of taking out a mortgage with them, so you’d think they would insist on payments being made from it!
Anyway, it’s good they allow flexibility and paying from other banks - but a bit silly they block adjustments if you want to make one yourself.
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With overpayments, do you save on interest or do they just come off the balance? As I didn’t check the terms, but seems a very good deal if it reduces automatically for unlimited early repayments.
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Ah, sorry - I admit I didn’t check before posting! I may have been thinking of HSBC Advance mortgages.
Them not being able to tell whether you have sent a Standing Order or normal Faster Payment is just how the system works. All standing orders are actually just sent as Faster Payments on the appointed day - there is nothing which sets them apart from “standard” payments and the recipient can’t tell if you’ve used a standing order or not.
I suppose you just have to say if you are not sending it from a 1st account so they can get you to agree to that blurb to cover them, legally speaking, if you complain about things going wrong. Especially since customers may be confused by the differences in how Standing Orders and Direct Debits work. Direct Debits, of course, can be of varying amounts and the “claiming” institution requests the amount - whereas Standing Orders are always whatever the “sending” institution has set.
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