Is there away to trigger a withdrawal from a pot when the current account goes below a certain amount?
I try to keep a minimum balance in my current account. All the other money is in pots, scheduled to withdraw in time for bills etc. However, a couple of times, my current account has gone below my minimum amount and a purchase has bounced because not enough money. The annoying thing is there is more than enough in my overall account - it’s just in a pot waiting to be moved. It would be ace if this can be triggered/ automatic rather than manual.
It’s possible if you subscribe to Plus/Premium, then use Google sheets/IFTTT.
But it’s a bit clunky and not native.
IFTTT has merchant triggers, so if you spend say £10 at KFC, it moves £10 back to your balance from a selected pot. I’m not sure if you could leave that field blank or apply it to all, so that if you spend on your card anywhere, it then adds that amount back from a pot.
It defeats the purpose of pots doesn’t it? They are there to keep money seperate from everything else so it’s reserved for specific purposes. If its general money to spend then just keep it in your main balance instead of a pot.
Other banks have this option, auto balancer with TSB a prime example, thinking the idea is not having too much accessible in the case of fraud etc, but personally I don’t see the point, I have nothing worth stealing and it’s pointless in my eyes.
It keeps it inaccessible to single transaction fraud, but automatically moving funds into the main balance automatically opens it up to multi-transaction fraud.
Still, that’s only one reason for segregation of stuff like this.
It’s a bizarre dilemma. I think it comes down to what folks want more. A system that protects the bank from falling victim to fraud in which the user is not liable for anyway. Or a system that can protect the user from overdraft charges and missing payments?
I’d probably prefer the latter. As much as a minor inconvenience the first scenario is, I don’t lose anything in that situation, because the bank reimburses. But I do lose when I’m away from my phone for a day or more and can’t take money out of a pot to cover the overdraft fees or pay my phone bill (not direct debit). Though there are more solutions for Monzo to explore to tackle this issue.
To summarise. There are pros and cons to both segregation and auto withdrawals. I think what’s being asked for here is choice for the user decide for themselves, rather than one over the other, so I’ll vote for that!
Oh, agreed. For me, the fraud argument is something I wouldn’t even consider in a scenario like this but, as it was raised, I thought I’d point out what I see as the flaw in that scenario with auto top up.
Personally, I wouldn’t go for this simply because I have no use for it but that’s different from saying no one else can have it either. The feature has merit if people want it.
I am wary of numerous options for odd bits of functionality, though, so I wouldn’t want to cover every possible use case “just because”.
I came looking for this same idea. I’d really like to be able to say - don’t let my current account pot drop below £x (if there is money in pot X that can be transferred out).
Like others I keep the amount in my current account pot low to limit risk if my card is compromised.
However, now there is another reason too. Savings pots have high interest (or relatively high interest - 3% ish), therefore you want to keep as much in there as possible and only pull it out when needed.
One option would be to enable this from the instant access saver account or safety net pot. You can only have 1 each of those, they aren’t general pots. Safetynet seems like a good option and from it’s intended use, won’t have all your savings in.