We’re letting you know about updates to our general Savings Account Terms and Conditions. The new version will be introduced from 9 April 2025. You can download the new Terms and Conditions here:
We’ve summarised the changes below, please read these carefully.
What are the changes?
We’ll be making the following changes to our Terms and Conditions:
Updating certain personal details
We’ve clarified our processes for updating certain personal details if you have registered for our online customer portal or app. Please note, we might not be able to update some personal details over the phone, we’ll let you know if this happens and how to proceed.
We’ve updated this change in the ‘Getting in touch’ section of our Terms and Conditions.
Receiving payments into your savings account
We’ve clarified the process for making cash payments into your savings account. When using paying-in slips to pay cash into your savings account, we’ve clarified that we might ask for proof of identity beforehand, to improve the security of the payment.
We’ve updated this change in section 3, ‘Receiving payments into your savings account’ of our Terms and Conditions.
What happens if something goes wrong?
On October 7 2024, a new regulation required all UK banks and building societies to update their reimbursement rights and changed the way we deal with authorised push payment (APP) fraud.
APP fraud is when you are tricked into authorising a payment from your savings account to a different account using Faster Payment Systems or Clearing House Automated Payment System (CHAPS).
This can happen when the person you’re paying isn’t who you thought they were or when a payment is for a different reason than you expected.
What’s changing?
We’ve updated our Terms and Conditions to reflect your new reimbursement rights. Under the new regulations, if you have been targeted by APP fraud, you might be entitled to:
- Reimbursement within 5 business days, subject to a successful investigation. If further information is needed, this can take up to 35 business days.
- A maximum claim amount set by our regulators for each payment, currently set at £85,000.
Any successful claim amount might be subject to an ‘excess’. This means you might have to pay an excess towards the loss, such as, if you make a claim of £1,000 and an excess of £100 applies, you’ll receive a reimbursement payment of £900. You might not receive any money back if your claim is less than £100.
When do the reimbursement rights not apply?
We treat every case seriously and will review them individually. However, there are some key reasons why you might not be reimbursed:
- If the claim you make is not true.
- If you have ignored warnings by us, other payment service providers or law enforcement.
- Failing to report the scam promptly when you became aware of it.
- For cash, cheques, or international payments.
- Where you haven’t responded to our requests for information to help with our investigation.
For your claim to be considered, you’ll need to tell us within 13 months of the date of the final payment to a fraudster.
We’ve updated this change in section 7, ‘What happens if something goes wrong’, of our Terms and Conditions.
Please let us know even if you think you’ve been a victim of a different type of scam, as we consider all claims on a case by case basis.
You can find out more details about your rights and how we handle APP fraud claims here.
Delaying payments if we suspect fraud or a scam
We’ll always try our best to make a payment when you ask us to, but we might need to restrict a payment to protect you if we suspect fraud or a scam.
If this happens, we'll try our best to get in touch and ask you to provide information to help us confirm you are not a victim of fraud. We may not be able to contact you if we can’t for legal reasons.
We can delay making the payment for as long as it takes to make these checks, this will typically be no longer than 4 business days.
This delay will only apply to payments:
- in sterling
- to another account in the UK
- by Faster Payment, CHAPS or standing order.
If the delayed payment leads to loss of interest or you incur charges, we’ll refund you the difference. We'll do this whether we process the payment or not.
We’ve updated this change in section 4, 'Withdrawing money from your savings account', of our Terms and Conditions.
When we can stop you using your savings account
When we can suspend your account
We’ve updated the reasons why we might suspend your savings account. Our old Terms and Conditions say that we can only suspend your account if:
- We think your security information is being used by someone else without permission, for example, if there’s unusual activity on your savings account.
- There are other legal, regulatory or security reasons why we need to do so.
Our new Terms and Conditions say that we can now also suspend your account if we act reasonably and we think you have done any of the following:
- You’ve not complied with your obligations under the agreement in a material way.
- You’ve committed (or attempted) fraud against us or someone else.
- You’ve used or tried to use your savings account illegally or for a criminal activity.
- Or, we’ve been instructed by the authorities to suspend your account.
We’ve updated section 6, ‘Keeping your savings account safe’ of our Terms and Conditions.
When we can close your account
There are a few reasons why we might need to end your agreement with us. Currently, we must give you 2 months’ notice if we’re going to do this. We’re changing this to 90 days’ notice.
We might close your account without notice if we have reasonable ground for thinking that:
- You’ve failed to provide us with the required information, or have given us false or misleading information, that is required for us to open and maintain your savings account with us.
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You’ve put us in a position where we might break a law, regulation, code of practice or other duty that applies to us if we keep your savings account open or if keeping your savings account open exposes us to action or censure from any government, regulatory or law enforcement agency.
- Your behaviour towards any of our staff, or any other individuals on our premises, is threatening, abusive, harassment, discriminatory, or otherwise inappropriate.
- You’ve used or tried to use your savings account illegally or for a serious crime or for committing an offence relating to the purchase of goods or services.
- Or, we’ve been instructed by the authorities to close your account immediately.
We’ve updated section 9, ‘Ending your agreement’ of our Terms and Conditions.
Next steps
If you’re happy with the changes to our Terms and Conditions, you don’t need to do anything and they’ll apply automatically on 9 April 2025.
However, if you’re not happy with these changes, you might be able to close your savings account and end your agreement with us by letting us know before 9 April 2025
Please note, you’re not able to close your savings account if you have:
- Any fixed-term bond savings accounts. Your maturity date still applies, and you must wait until this date to withdraw or transfer your funds.
- Any fixed-term ISA’s. Please see your product Terms and Conditions for details of penalties that may apply for early closure.
- Any Notice Savings accounts. You can still close any notice accounts but must submit the relevant notice period as required by your product Terms and Conditions.
If you’re thinking about closing an ISA or Child Trust Fund account, please get in touch so we can help make sure your money keeps its tax-free status.
If you’re a personal representative on an account, you’ll still need to provide any documentation required before account closure.
Getting in touch
If you have any questions about the changes, please get in touch.