RACHEL RICKARD STRAUS: No such thing as a free £200 from a bank

If a restaurant offered to pay you for a nice meal, would you? Or if an airline said they would give you money to take one of their flights, would you say yes?

Whether or not you did it, I’m sure you’d be asking, what’s the catch? You would be suspicious why they would spend money to get you as a customer instead of billing you.

Yet this is exactly what we are currently seeing from the big banks. Several offer huge monetary incentives to anyone who switches their checking account to them. For example, RBS, NatWest and TSB are giving away £200 and First Direct £175.

But just ask yourself: What’s in it for them? After all, banks are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They are profitable companies, with shareholders to keep happy.

And you can bet your £200 that they’ll only offer you wads of cash because they think they’ll get it back from you – and then some – further down the line.

It could be that once you are a checking account customer, they will try to sell you other products, such as personal loans or credit cards, that will allow them to make a profit.

Or maybe they hope you leave lump sums in your account where they will pay you low interest.

Or maybe they sell you a paid account, with useful perks like phone insurance or free access to airport lounges that you don’t really need.

Don’t think for a minute that they are doing it to help customers in need of money. Over the past two weeks, the big banks have shown unequivocally where their loyalty lies – and that is with shareholders and executive compensation packages, and certainly not with savers.

The top six increased profits by £7bn last year, raising interest rates for borrowers and not passing on most of the recent interest rate rises to savers, their financial results show.

Bank bosses were dragged before MPs on the Treasury Select Committee last month to explain why they have failed so miserably to pass rate hikes on to depositors. They made corny-mouthed excuses, then shuffled off and continued the same practices as before. RBS and NatWest pay 0.65 percent, TSB 0.7 percent and First Direct 1.2 percent on easy access accounts.

I’m not telling you for a minute not to take them up on their free cash offers.

Switching banks keeps them sharp. As Mark Mullen, CEO of Atom Bank, put it to me last week, “Loyalty to your bank is bad for your financial health.”

In a cost-of-living crisis, these cash payments are of course very welcome. If you can find a new sofa that suits your needs better than your old one, go for it. And take the money. But keep an eye on what they get in return.

No response from Ofcom on broadband price hikes

The regulator Ofcom has yet to report the findings of its investigation into price increases for mid-contract broadband.

We believe that price increases that counter inflation in the middle of the contract are extremely unfair and should be curbed by the regulator.

But yes, Ofcom has been very busy with other pressing matters lately. Last week it held its Antique Phone Show contest on social media.

Twitter followers were asked to share pictures of their old mobile phones and tell Ofcom about their ‘own old fashioned handsets’. The controller then took the time to compliment them on the old dusty handsets found in the back of the drawers.

The broadband and telecom providers must shiver.

Email Dilemma

I still remember the exciting day when my family got the Internet for the first time. Setting up an email address was part of the process. Like many households, we didn’t realize we could go with other email account providers instead.

So I really feel for those who did the same, in good faith, and are now stuck with an email address that ties them to their broadband provider indefinitely. Yes, I know you can change your email address whenever you want. But it’s hard to let go of a years-long archive of social interactions without worrying about deleting something valuable.

Sky manages to let former customers keep their email addresses for free – why can’t the other providers?