Lower income customers can save for Christmas with HBOS
The Halifax Bank of Scotland has recently announced its plans to help low incomes families to save for Christmas through a specialist savings scheme, which it hopes to launch in May. Officials from the HBOS state that they think the savings scheme will prove very popular amongst lower income customers, and believe that his is a sustainable savings plan that will enable low income families to put aside additional cash for this expensive time of year without having to leave themselves in financial dire straits for the rest of the year.
The bank also hopes that the savings scheme will go some way towards making up for the collapse of Farepak last year, where customers lost an average of four hundred pounds each after the savings scheme collapsed. As a result of this officials from the Financial Inclusion Taskforce announced that they would be running an investigation into just how viable and effective these savings scheme actually were. This scheme, state HBOS officials, should prove popular and effective.
The bank, which has over three million basic account holders, has been contacting low income customers about the scheme. The scheme will require a minimum initial deposit of £5 and will then require a minimum £5 deposit each month thereafter, and will run from May to October each year. At the end of the period, customers that have been saving can use the cash towards a range of gifts and high street vouchers.
One official from the bank stated: 'We have always believed that we did the right thing on Farepak, our view hasn't changed. But we do accept that the banks could do more for low income customers. We have all learnt lessons from Farepak and we are trying to do something about it.'
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