Halifax Regular Saver hassle

Neither can you start one as an extra account on their internet portfolio site although you can set up other accounts :-(

Certainly not as far as Nationwide are concerned.

I suspect that they have another agenda, namely that if they can get you in to talk to an adviser, she may be able to 'interest' you in other products. It is, otherwise, difficult to see why they are offering such a high interest rate in comparison with other products. Mark you, the Halifax always seem to be able to make simple things complicated. No doubt when the introduce the follow up to this account, you'll have to go and do it all again. I just browbeat the girl at the reception desk until she said that if I waited over there for half an hour somebody would see me.

GPG

In message , Alan F writes

Yes.

Crack, Sledgehammer & Nut are the appropriate words.

In message , Blackthorn writes

It has now, even for them.

I was not a customer of Halifax until yesterday. I went to the branch to set up the account only to be told I could have an appointment to discuss the matter in 2 weeks. So I set up the account over the phone, took in a couple of documents with my cheque to the local branch. One document was a credit card statement which they said was not sufficient but as I did not have any of the documents in their list they were happy with the statement plus the card. Took about 30 minutes, but that is all part of the fun following the money laundering rules.

Bryan

Halifax always want "the appointment" to try and flog you stuff. We wanted to just change an account from signle name to joint name and had all our documents. Nope - can't be done. Everytime we deposit a cheque - you can't get out without - "can we make an appointment for a cash makeover ........... " they do not know when to stop.

In Halifax's case - they use the money laundering rules to make an appointment - which isn't neccessary - to flog you services.

The negative margin on the new saver account has to be paid for from somewhere!?

From their website, today....'If you are an existing member and opening the account with identical personal details, no further proof of identity is needed.'

In message , Blackthorn writes

I stand corrected, but I still wonder because this is in direct contradiction of the latest Money Laundering requirements which came into effect on 1 March.

john boyle wrote on Sat, 6 Mar 2004

Is it? AFAICS

para.4(2)(a) requires the application of identification procedures when:

"A and B form, or agree to form, a business relationship", where B is an "applicant for business".

Para.2(1) contains the definitions:

"applicant for business" means a person seeking to form a business relationship, or carry out a one-off transaction, with another person acting in the course of relevant business carried on by that other person in the United Kingdom"

and:

"business relationship" means any arrangement the purpose of which is to facilitate the carrying out of transactions on a frequent, habitual or regular basis where the total amount of any payments to be made by any person to any other in the course of the arrangement is not known or capable of being ascertained at the outset".

In the absence of other indicators, I'd be inclined to regard the joining of the building society, rather than the opening of each savings account, as the formation of the business relationship. But is there anything that points the other way? -- IANAL or finance worker.

Basically yes. Someone obviously decided it would be too much hassle to get everyone to go through the hoops for every existing account, so they seem to be doing it as new accounts are opened. I assume that if you open *another* new account it won't be needed again - at least until the next change in the rules! (I just opened another egg account online with no trouble.)

Does that require validation for every new account, or only when they don't already have the latest compliance information on file?

The problem is knowing if you have the latest details on file or not. Merely asking the individual if they are at the same address may turn out not to be good enough, so most organisations take the safe route and ask for it all again.

Errm, if they don't know if they've checked for compliance or not I would have thought that doesn't count as compliant anyway!

Thats the whole point! I think thats why a couple of banks have been hit with hefty fines!