High street banking giant NatWest is paying £216 into customers’ accounts, with £180 of the cash arriving in time for Christmas.
The bank is one of several offering cash incentives to customers of major high street banks and building societies in order to tempt people into jumping ship.
Research has shown that bank customers tend to be among the most loyal customers of any product out there, with Martin Lewis revealing that many customers have been with their bank longer than their partner.
As a result, banks resort to offering cash incentives to try to lure customers away from other big names.
NatWest is one of the five along with the likes of Lloyds, Santander,Nationwide and First Direct which is currently prepared to send new customers money if they transfer their account from another bank and they haven’t had a Natwest account recently.
Those making the switch will have all their direct debits and standing orders transferred automatically within seven days thanks to the automatic bank switching service which all major banks have signed up to.
Customers can apply online to open a new Reward account and switch your current account using the Current Account Switching Service.
The offer is also open to existing Natwest customers if they transfer their normal account to a Reward account, but you can’t get the switching bonus if you’ve already had one from Natwest before.
The Reward account also offers cashback on day to day spending. This costs £2 per month, but pays up to £5 a month on your regular spending, so works out at £36 a year on top of the £180 switching bonus, for a net gain of £216 in total.
Natwest said: “Apply online or via our mobile app to open a new Reward account and switch your current account held elsewhere using the Current Account Switch Service. This means your old bank account will close and any funds and Direct Debits will move over to us.
“If you’re an existing customer, you can switch your account held elsewhere into an existing eligible Reward account, or switch in and upgrade an existing account to one of our Reward accounts.
“To be eligible for the offer, within 60 days of completing the switch, you must have an eligible Reward account [and] pay in £1,250. This can be made of multiple payments and must remain in the account for 24 hours/ Log in to our mobile app. If you already have the app, you’ll need to be on the latest version.
“When you’ve met these conditions, we’ll pay £180 into your eligible account within seven days.”
