Rates home page

Here you'll find all our charges for banking, Foreign and Travel Services and Payment types.

Banking fee

You must pay our £10 Banking fee for each month or part of a month that you hold a 1st Account unless we agree to waive the fee. If applicable, the fee will debit your account monthly in arrears.

Banking fee waivers

You will not have to pay the Banking fee:

• for the first six months following account opening
• for any month in which you:
  • pay into your account* (other than by internal transfer from another first direct account) a minimum of £1,500 or you maintain an average monthly balance on your account* in excess of £1,500 (month means calendar month and we will work out the average monthly balance by adding together the end of day balances for each day during the month and dividing the sum by the number of days in the month) or
  • hold a first direct mortgage, credit card, personal loan, savings account (*excludes Regular Saver Account), First Directory, or first direct car or home insurance policy;
• in relation to any second or subsequent 1st Account in the same name. (If you hold a sole and joint account, your joint account will not be considered to be in the same name unless all joint account holders are the same);
• if your account is inactive for more than 90 days and the balance of your account is less than £10.

* Where multiple current accounts are held, accounts will be considered individually in respect of balances and credits received and will not be aggregated when assessing whether a fee is payable.

first direct debit card

Using your card abroad
General: any foreign currency debit card payments or cash withdrawals abroad are converted to sterling by VISA or Mastercard (as appropriate) using wholesale market rates applying on the day the conversion is made. These transactions are subject to our foreign exchange charge of 2.75%. We will deduct a foreign currency debit card payment or cash withdrawal abroad from your account once we receive details from the card scheme, at the latest the next business weekday. Details of the current wholesale market rates can be obtained by calling us on the following numbers: from the UK 08 456 100 100 (textphone 08 456 100 147) or from abroad +44 113 234 5678 (Text Relay +44 151 494 1260).

Cash machines: there is an ATM transaction fee currently 2% (minimum £1.75, maximum £5.00) for withdrawing cash at cash machines overseas. First Directory customers can make withdrawals at machines overseas free of ATM transaction fees from HSBC and will therefore not pay this fee. We will deduct the amount of the transaction fee from your account once we receive details of the payment from the card scheme, at the latest the next business weekday. Some cash machine operators may apply a direct charge for withdrawals from their cash machines and this will be advised on screen at the time of withdrawal.

Shops and retailers: there is no transaction fee for using your debit card to pay for goods and services overseas.

Overdraft service

You can request an overdraft, or an increase to an existing overdraft limit, on your 1st Account (but not on a savings account) by either:

• making a formal request, that is, you ask us for and we agree to provide you with, an overdraft or an increase to an existing overdraft limit before you authorise any payments or withdrawals from your account that, if made by us, would cause your account to go overdrawn or over an existing overdraft limit;
  
  or
  
  
• by way of an informal request, that is, where you authorise a payment or withdrawal to be made from your account which, if made by us, would cause your account to go overdrawn or over an existing overdraft limit, without having agreed with us in advance an overdraft or an increase to an existing overdraft limit on your account to cover such payment.

We may charge an Arrangement Fee for arranging an overdraft for you in each situation.

Arrangement fees

Arrangement Fees are accrued during your monthly statement charging period which is usually the same as your monthly statement period.

Together with the Office of Fair Trading and leading consumer groups, we have also put together some examples of the types of charges which may apply if you make payments without having enough money or available overdraft limit.

*No Arrangement Fee is payable if, in the last six months we have not agreed to an overdraft request from you. See below for further waivers.

Arrangement fee waivers

We will not charge an Arrangement Fee:-

• for your first ever overdraft with us; or
• provided within the last six months, we have not agreed to an overdraft request from you
• for Informal Overdrafts if covering funds are paid in before the end of the day
• if debited Arrangement Fees (or interest) cause your account to go overdrawn or further overdrawn.

We will not charge more than one Arrangement Fee a day.

Return fees

We may not be able to grant every request you make for an overdraft. Where we decline an informal overdraft request we will not charge an Arrangement Fee but a Return Fee will be payable for considering and returning payment requests, eg, cheque, standing order, direct debit, etc.

Before we deduct debit interest, Arrangement Fees and/or Return Fees, we will give you at least 14 days notice of the amount to be deducted.

Please note that in addition to the above we operate some discretionary policies as to how charges and interest rates apply to overdrafts.

Travel

Payments

These charges will be deducted from your account when you ask for the service. We may make a charge for any enquiries we receive in respect of each payment instruction, whether made by you or another person. We will not charge you if we have made an error. We will advise you of the charge before we start investigations on your behalf.

If you provide us with incorrect information, and you ask us to try to recover the payment, we may charge you for this service. We will give you the details of our charges before we try to recover the payment. The recipient's bank may also charge you if this happens.

For some payments we may also deduct from your account charges made by agents, intermediary banks and the recipient's bank, as agreed with you in the first direct Terms.

Currency cut-off times

When you make a Priority Payment or SEPA payment, currency cut-off times will apply. The main European currency cut-off times are set out in the table below. If you are making a payment to a country that is not listed, you can call us on the usual numbers to find out if there is a cut-off time and what it is.

All cut-off times quoted refer to time in London

Online Sharedealing

Online trades

Telephone trades

Frequent user

Trading taxes and levies