First Direct Chat

Financial Chat
83

From Bank Accounts | Open an account with first direct

The coronavirus is affecting everyone’s lives and we want to make sure we are doing all we can to support our customers and our people.

This means we need to focus our attention on our existing customers and their immediate financial needs. To make sure our people are able to do this, we have taken the decision to withdraw first direct current accounts to new customers.

We hope this will only be a temporary measure so please keep checking back here for updates.

(My emphasis)

What are we to make of this?

85

That would be a shame given the consistently high ratings FD receive.

And if they stop taking on new customers, I don’t imagine they’ll keep the old accounts open forever either (I guess they’d all get rolled into HSBC).

86

That First Direct are not able to forsee the future and don’t know if Covid-19 type restrictions will be temporary in nature and they can go back to normal or that they will need to make more substantial/longer term changes before they can sign up new customers while providing the service standards they are known for

87

Nothing much, really. They are focussing 5heir efforts on current customers.

They will need to accept new current account customers eventually. Some people will change to other banks, others will die.

88

I wouldn’t panic about this. I suspect they’ll be back in a couple of months - but not before 29th Aug.

FD (and HSBC) currently have one of the best overdraft offerings on the market - £500 free for all customers until 29th Aug. Most other banks have either stopped this, or are about to. After the 29th, FD will want to keep offering their (standard) £250 interest free overdraft - but are likely worried this won’t be viable if they get an influx of new customers all relying on overdraft facilities.

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89
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90

Hold mine for access to the regular saver only, so who supports the debit card makes no difference to my portfolio :grin:

91

I’m due a new debit card in about two months so it looks like I’ll then be getting another at some point next year.

That will be a short lived card. It doesn’t get much use at the best of times and even less than that at the moment.

92

That’s a shame. I have a Monzo account and a FD account as a backup, but I’d prefer my back up to be VISA in case of (unlikely) MasterCard outages. Might have to open another back up account.

93

Nationwide is still VISA @anon28892155

94

Dozens is about to go from MasterCard to Visa if you fancy a fintech backup?

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95

BTW debit card is optional, one can choose not to have one for FD, HSBC, M&S. Especially if one is only using them for regular savers accounts and PayM.

97

They’re my non-Monzo account - I get my salary paid in and a couple of DDs go out (switched over to them a while back for a bonus and that was one requirement), but I do 99% of my spending from Monzo.

No card reader needed. App is good for an ‘old’ bank, can’t think of any particular qualms other than that there’s no categorisation, budgeting, etc etc. It looks as bland as every old one I’ve used.

No instant notifications as far as I’m aware but transactions do show up very quickly in app in my experience.

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98

They’re also still not taking on new customers at the moment although there’s nothing to suggest that’s going to be permanent.

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99

Yep. I hate that fact that logging in on a desktop requires multiple passwords and devices.

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100

Don’t do it like that - use the phone app. Touch ID [or face, but I don’t have that]. If you have to call them they have voice recognition now to save you having to remember all the security questions. R-

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101

Did you see this already?

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102

Dependable but uninspiring. Their app is much more clunky than monzo’s (tho it has cheque imaging).

HSBC’s machines for paying in coins are ace.

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104

There are some who would say that this is exactly what they want from a bank…

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105

Coming soon I understand.

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