If you have a reasonable credit rating and a net montly income of at least £1000, you can do better than get free banking, you can get paid for doing business with your bank.

I have a Halifax Reward Current Account which pays me £5 (net) a month, as long as I pay in at least £1000 a month. Having this current account means an additional £5 (net) reward a month, if I spend at least £300 monthly on my Halifax Clarity Card. I always pay off the full credit card balance every month, so I don’t pay any interest and there’s no annual fee on the Clarity Card. It’s also great to use abroad as there are no transactions or ATM fees, you just have to pay interest on any overseas cash withdrawals.

Therefore, over a 12 month period I earned £120 for being a Halifax customer. Pretty good going really.

In fact, you can even get £100 if you transfer your current account to the Halifax.

I’m not making any commission from this post. The Halifax are OK, I’ve been with them for around 30 years. I’ve had cause to complain to Halifax Customer Service recently when they made a pig’s ear of the transfer arrangement on the maturity of my Guaranteed Reserve savings account. However, I did get £30 in compensation.

They’ve been through a rather schizophrenic  merger with the Bank of Scotland and all former Halifax branches in Scotland are now branded Bank of Scotland and won’t asisst with the maintainence of Halifax accounts. I’m disappointed that the Halifax savings rates have become uncompetitive and I’ve had to shunt money to higher paying accounts with other institutions.

But, for the moment, I’m sticking with the Halifax for my current account and Clarity credit card and enjoying getting £120 a year for doing so.

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