This may be the incorrect term, but I suspect others have had the option to link accounts with other bank/card issuers to a single bank account for some time (many years).
I’ve never used this system as I don’t necessarily want one company to automatically have information on balances/transactions made with another account provider, but I’m uncertain if the links you create allow one provider to analyse the data or just present it to you in one place as a summary of accounts.
Anyone know?
Nothing to hide just a matter of privacy. They increasingly seem too be analysing spending patterns
I’m getting a little annoyed with my bank in recent weeks for odd messages popping up on the website.
One proclaims:
‘Save you Postman a trip - make all you accounts paper-free’
To me that translates to: ‘Save you money for mailing statements and make my postman’s job less secure.’
If they offered a cheaper monthly account fee for going paperless it might be an incentive but for some things I need paper and would end up printing downloadable statements.
“It’s ok, no hard feelings.” Who the f*** do they think they are! And actually no, I don’t bank with them or another bank I got a payment from earlier in the week.
Maybe you need a different bank. I’ve never been charged a penny in fees from any bank regardless of whether they send me paper or digital statement, although frankly, why anybody wants to have trees cut down to stick information on paper that you can easily and more flexibly view digitally is beyond me.
It’s one of those accounts where you get some bundled perks for a monthly fee including breakdown cover, travel insurance etc along with some account benefits compared to more standard accounts.
Naturally you’re paying for these things in the monthly fee and it’s probably not as good value now compared to a decade ago, but there were reasons I was happy to pay for it in the past. Have been reconsidering of late if I’m honest.
I mentioned in another thread I’m trying to shift to more paperless options.
Sometimes when going through many transactions/purchases as part of budgeting I just find I’m far quicker checking/annotating with a paper copy and a pen. I also find I’m much better taking in information from paper rather than PDFs or eBooks. Maybe it’s do do with ergonomics or my vision these days.
I’m fine reading things like this site or BBC articles etc online, but probably spend a lot of the day in front of a screen for work purposes- you don’t blink as much and I often get dry eyes, so a break from the screen can be relaxing.
Hi @Alley_Cat, I agree with your thoughts on privacy if you move to open banking. I don’t know exactly how much info is shared, but for me I like to keep my finances as personal as possible.
The argument for seeing all you finances in one place is weak (for me at least) as I run a spreadsheet with all financial details within that. Not rocket science
I also use spreadsheets for such things, though sometimes find writing various calculations down on paper makes the figures stick in my head in a way allowing the computer to tot things up doesn’t.
I recently took out another credit card, because the cashback was better. I linked my bank account to it for the ddr payments. After a few weeks, I get a message asking if I wanted to link another bank account, as it could increase my offers or credit limit from them. So I did this too. With banks and credit cards, I don’t mind doing this if it could possibly benefit me somehow. I’ve always had a good credit rating and nothing to hide. I suppose my thought is if you have nothing to hide and you’re happy with your rating, why not? If you don’t have a good rating, maybe that’s why people hide their accounts?
It’s hard to know sometimes how their algorithms work, and I think if there were any significant decisions on their part they’d be able to run a soft credit check anyway without affecting you. My concern about the open banking is that they’ll get individual transaction information (for 6 months in the bank’s FAQ) which I don’t necessarily think they need as they could analyse that unless they’re just displaying it.
I have several accounts with my bank, but I’ve had some odd popups lately about using their accounts as my main one - I do already! My salary goes into mine, and I shift money to a joint account and some basic ones for regular bills (council tax/utilities etc) and expenses just to keep things separate from each other.
I think some of the more modern banks have virtual sub accounts you can split the overall balance for different predictable purposes - wish mine had this. Apparently my credit rating is ‘improved’ by having been with them since I was at University - sometimes it doesn’t feel like that!
I get a credit score from one of the scoring companies with one of my credit cards - I think this potentially gives them information they don’t necessarily need, but it’s fairly handy to track month by month. I noticed that this feature results in monthly soft searches from them. Another oddity (or not) I found is that some 0% deals I occasionally take result in searches with a ‘money laundering’ reason on my formal credit report.
My rating has been good for as long as I can remember, but something seems to have changed more generally in recent years. I’m not sure if paying off the mortgage early hasn’t affected certain things.
I don’t think you can hide accounts these days to prevent poor credit ratings being seen.
My issue is about looking after my own affairs without multiple banks and their associates knowing about every financial transaction I make. Just for clarity none of my transactions are illegal and I have a good credit rating!!!
Nothing concerning my robust financial status is actually linked to the internet.
No bank software in my computer or phone.
No credit card and no virtual assistants.
I do not answer to mails or calls from numbers i don’t know.
I love papers, they know it and maybe they hate me.
But…no pain no gain!
Wow Gianluigi, this is a bit of a hair shirt approach! I do however understand where you are coming from. In this “connected world” we have no privacy anymore. As they say, if you want to know anything about yourself, ask Google .
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