Current Accounts For High Earners

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Current Accounts For High Earners

If you are a high earner, you may want to think about taking out a current account that specifies in managing your personal financial situation and provides a service that you may not find with a standard account.

If you earn a significant amount of money a year, a premium account could help you to manage your money successfully.

What is a high earner from a banks perspective?

Banks are looking to carve out premium banking services for customers who have higher than average earnings.

Premium services differ but at the higher end you need to be earning typically £75,000 pa or more.

Some services rather than focussing on your income will have a minimum level of investments you need to hold with the bank e.g. £100,000+ to qualify.

There are advantages to obtaining a premier current account if you are a high earner, which include:

  • Access to a personal account manager
  • Professional contact and advice on managing your finances. Wealth management services are usually on offer if you have money to invest.
  • Some banks may offer more beneficial interest rates to premium account customers
  • Higher overdraft limits
  • Additional features such as free travel insurance and airmiles

However, there are some disadvantages that high earners looking for a current account may want to think about when searching for a current account if you are a high earner. Some of these are:

  • There are some banks that place higher monthly fees on premium current account
  • Some accounts have very high eligibility requirements to be accepted for an account
  • In many cases, the service you get may not be so different to a standard current account and the additional features you get may not represent value for money.

In the last couple of years a number of challenger banks have appeared on the scene offering banking services that previously were offered to premium customers at high street or private banks.

Technology has resulted in a disruption of the banking market so customers are no longer obliged to work with traditional high street banks.

The emergence of fintech banks who do not have the legacy systems that make mobile flexibility possible has meant that the new pretenders should be seriously considered when looking for a banking provider.

 

Your new bank is responsible for contacting you before the switch date if there are any hitches with transferring your standing orders and direct debits – and incoming payments.

And the switching service is covered by a guarantee: the new bank must refund you if there are any charges because payments didn’t go through on time.  But you have to ask them for this.

Yes – you can use the partial switch service and keep your old account open, transferring all or some of your payments. But the process isn’t covered by the service guarantee so it can take longer: possibly up to 20 working days. And there isn’t an automatic-redirect for the three years after you switch. A partial switch may not qualify for the incentives offered for switching (though that shouldn’t be the only reason why you change accounts).

Not all your regular bill payments may be made by direct debits or standing orders. Some service providers (such as telecoms services, online subscriptions, gym membership and payday loans) get you to set up a “recurring payment” or “continuous payment authority” which is linked to your debit or credit card

Because they’re linked to a card rather than directly to your bank account, they’re not included in the switching service (or covered by the guarantee).

It’s not always clear which are your continuous payment authorities: you won’t find them listed on your online banking portal. When you set them up you were asked for you card details (“please read me the long card number”) rather than your bank account and sort code numbers.

You’ll need to check your monthly card statements: any regular payments going out each month that are not marked as DD (direct debit) or SO (standing order) are likely to be continuous payment authorities.

If you want to keep paying for this service (or loan) in this way, you’ll need to contact each provider and tell them your new card details as soon as you have them.

This may sound like a lot of bother, but it is useful to check periodically what’s going out of your account regularly: there may be services you’re not using (such as fast delivery, or additional online data storage) that you want to cancel.

If you can remember the family members or friends who occasionally transfer money directly to your bank, you can send them your new account details and ask them to set them you up as a new Payee.

It’s probably not a good idea to just email all your Contacts with your new account details. If you’re concerned about email security, the most secure way of sending bank account details to specific people is via WhatsApp.

And if any payments are accidentally made to your old account, for 36 months (three years) after you’ve switched, your new bank or building society will arrange for any payments to be automatically redirected to your new account. They will also contact the sender and give them your new account details.

You can pick any convenient day in the month, so long as it’s more than a week away, and not a weekend or a bank holiday.

If all your regular payments tend to go out of your account around the same time it’s best to choose a time of the month when your bank account isn’t so busy.

Current Account Offers