P227 CEEFAX 227 Tue 15 May 21:11/42 1/6 FOCUS: CHEQUE ACCOUNTS Choosing a home for your spare cash used to bj a relatively straightforward exercise. If you wanted a return, the building society was the obvious choice. If you wanted a chequebook and the facilities that go with it - standing orders and the like - you opened a bank account. Which bank you choose came down, more often than not, to the amiability ot otherwise of the manager. The products they offered were usually much of a muchnjss. Books Page 228P227 CEEFAX 227 Tue 15 May 21:13/08 2/6 FOCUS: CHEQUE ACCOUNTS Now that the chequebook-toting section of our society is growing larger every year, so the chequing accounts on offer are beginning to proliferate. For a time - and this still applies to the standard, common-or-garden current accounts provided bz the Big Four High Street banks - the diffetjnce between one chequing account and anothjt boiled down to the level of charges. Now that the concept of the interest- bearing current account has caught on in this country, the array of chequing accounts on offer is at best daunting. Books Page 228P227 CEEFAX 227 Tue 15 May 21:01/41 3/6 FOCUS: CHEQUE ACCOUNTS The rapid advance of electronic money transfer is now allowing both banks and building societies, together with the odd unit trust group, to engineer new savings products that only two or three years ago would have been prohibitively expensive. Typical of this new breed is the recent link-up between the Alliance Building Society and the Bank of Scotland. Their BankSavj scheme relies on the new technology to leap the deposit/current account gap: when the balance in the latter falls too low, it gets a top-up. Books Page 228P227 CEEFAX 227 Tue 15 May 21:21/42 4/6 FOCUS: CHEQUE ACCOUNTS It cannot bj very long before computers are employed to shunt money between accounts as a matter of course. In the meantime, investors are faced with a frankly bewildering variety of interest-bearing chequing accounts. Thjsj fall broadly into two categories. First, those accounts linked to money market rates and usually limited to initial deposits of £2,000 or more. Second, those accounts paying rather less, but demanding as little as £100. Books Page 228P227 CEEFAX 227 Tue 15 May 21:14/24 5/6 -,,% FOCUS: CHEQUE ACCOUNTS A list of the different money market funds - they have grown from a mere handful in less than two years - is provided on Page 223 (sub-pages 1 & 2). Thjsj tables include the minimum initial deposit required and indicate where a chequebook is provided. The prospective investor, however, should take care to check on the small print, noting the frequency with which interest is credited, any penalties that may bj applied upon withdrawal, and, finally, any restrictions on the sums paid in or out. Books Page 228P227 CEEFAX 227 Tue 15 May 21:11/04 6/6 J FOCUS: CHEQUE ACCOUNTS Min Rate of Chqs Stdg Dip Interest Cost Ords Abbey Nat £100 5.1-6.6 c Alliance £500 6.3 d h Bristol W £500a 5.3-6.3 e yes Halifax £200 5.1 e yes Leicester £10b 6.1 10p Nottingham £1000 7.3 n/a Town & C £250 6.3 f h Co-Op Bank £10 8.0-10.0i g yes KEY a plus bank aOc deposit b per nth c £1 if balance below £100 d 25p below £100 e free in credit f 50p below £250 g £7.50 quarterly levy h Max 5 i gross Books Page 228