The fastest legit money in Britain

Bank Switching

Banks pay cold, hard cash to win your current account — typically £150–£220 per switch right now. The paperwork is done for you, it takes seven working days, and people who switch regularly bank several hundred pounds a year from it.

How it works — and why it’s so easy

The heavy lifting is done by the Current Account Switch Service (CASS) — a free, industry-backed system used by nearly every UK bank. You open the new account, tick “switch my old account”, and CASS moves your balance, Direct Debits and standing orders across in seven working days, closes your old account, and redirects anything sent to the old details for three years. You don’t contact your employer, your council or anyone else.

To earn the bonus, banks set a few simple hoops — typically: complete a full switch, move over two or more Direct Debits, pay in a lump sum (usually £1,000–£1,500, which can leave again the next day), and log in to the app or use your card a few times. Miss a hoop and you miss the bonus, so read the conditions and tick them off deliberately.

The switch, step by step

1. Find the current best offers — banks like First Direct, NatWest, Santander, HSBC, Lloyds and Barclays run them on and off all year, and the best bonuses at the time of writing sit between £150 and £220. 2. Check the eligibility line carefully: most offers exclude anyone who’s had a bonus from that banking group before, or held an account with them recently. 3. Download a few years of statements from your old account before you start — you lose access once it closes, and mortgage applications sometimes want them.

4. Apply for the new account and request the full switch in the application. 5. Tick off every bonus condition in the first week. 6. Update any recurring card payments (subscriptions like Netflix or Spotify) manually — CASS moves Direct Debits, not card payments. The cash typically lands within 30–90 days depending on the bank.

Serial switching — completely allowed

There’s no rule against switching repeatedly, and seasoned switchers earn £400–£800+ in a year by moving from offer to offer. The trick most use: keep your “real” bank account untouched, and open a second account (or use an old spare) as the designated switcher. Load it with a couple of low-value Direct Debits — charity donations and subscriptions work — then switch that account whenever a good bonus appears.

Each bank pays each person roughly once (some once ever, some once every few years), so the offers do eventually run out — but with a dozen banks running them, that’s a long runway. And a bonus of the extra accounts: your money is protected up to £120,000 per banking group by the FSCS, so spreading across banks never hurts.

Read this before you switch

Applying for a mortgage soon? Hold off — lenders like to see a stable account history, and a new account with no track record can complicate things. Overdrawn? The new bank must agree to match your overdraft or you’ll need to clear it first; never switch while in an unarranged overdraft. Linked perks? If your current account unlocks a savings rate, mortgage discount or insurance, check what you’d lose.

And a keep-it-honest note: the bonus is nice, but so is the right account. If two offers are close, pick the bank with the better ongoing perks — interest, cashback on bills, fee-free spending abroad — rather than the extra tenner up front.

Bonus banked. What next?

Set up cashback on your everyday spending — it earns quietly forever.