The latest news to help you get the most from your bank account.
Here’s my monthly update sharing changes for leading UK current accounts, as well as some of the relevant articles you might have missed on the blog.
May’s bank account update video
For a more detailed update, watch this video from our YouTube channel.
May’s current account offers
Latest bank switching deals
The only new deal is from Co-operative Bank, and it’s worth up to £175. You’ll get £100 for switching and another three lots of £25 over three months – as long as you meet the criteria.
There are just other two deals running at the moment, and that’s been the case since Lloyds and Santander offers ended at the start of April.
First Direct’s switching offer is for £175. Don’t forget you can access a 7% regular saver with this bank.
Meanwhile NatWest is giving away £150 for the switch. This has a decent 6.17% paying regular saver.
Barclays offers some customers £150 switch
If you are an existing Barclays customer, keep an eye on your emails as we’ve seen a that a few people have been offered a £150 switching deal. However, it doesn’t seem to be very widespread.
iFast offers 2% cashback
New digital bank iFast will let you earn 2% on spending with it’s card. However there are some major caveats.
One, you can only spend on your card via Google Pay. There’s no physical card you can use, and at the moment you can’t add the virtual card to Apple Pay.
Next, this rate is only around until the end of June, so that’s just two months of the high rate. However, there’s always the chance it’ll be extended as we saw with other offers last year from the likes of HyperJar and Trading 212.
Check accounts for Nationwide’s £50 ‘Thank You’
We mentioned back in March that a £50 payment was coming to most Nationwide customers in April, and that was paid on 10 April. So if you don’t use your Nationwide account often, go get the cash.
Get the best of our money saving content every Thursday, straight to your inbox
+ Get a £24 Quidco bonus (new members only). More details
May’s current account news
Club Lloyds & Halifax Rewards add 0% overdraft
If you occasionally go overdrawn each month, then it’s worth looking at the Halifax Reward or Club Lloyds current accounts as they both now come with £100 interest-free overdrafts. Only First Direct offers a larger one, at £250.
Beyond £100 you’ll pay 39.9%, which is worth noting for Club Lloyds customers as previously you may have had a lower rate.
Both accounts also have other features worth exploring, with free Disney+ and a 6.25% regular saver with Club Lloyds, and a £5 credit each month with Halifax Rewards – as long as you meet the criteria.
Zopa pushes different versions of beta account
Previously I told you about Zopa’s new current account which is available to most, if not all, Zopa customers in a ‘beta’ trial version. It’s still not fully launched, and it seems Zopa is testing different versions.
We spotted this after one reader shared they’d been sent an advert that was different to the initial offering. It turns out when signing up you might see one of these three:
| Option a | Option b | Option c |
| 7.5% regular saver | No regular saver | 7.5% regular saver |
| 2% interest on in account balances | 2% interest on your balance. | 2%* interest on your balance. |
| 2% cashback on direct debits up to £1,500 a year. | 3% cashback on up to £3,000 of direct debits per year. | 2% cashback on up to £2,000 of direct debits per year. |
| No fee | No fee | £5 annual fee |
All three looks similar but there are some important differences, particularly the £5 annual fee with option c, though in return you can earn 2% on an extra £500 of direct debits compared to option a – which would be worth £10.
Option b doesn’t have a fee – but it also doesn’t have the 7.5% regular saver – a big draw for me when I applied for the account. Instead the direct debit cashback is increased to 3% on an even larger £3,000 of bills. That would be worth a total of £90, versus £30. But, if you go with a or c and put the full £300 each month into a regular saver you’d walk away with £145.
HyperJar adds inactivity fee
We don’t talk too often about HyperJar outside of cashback on gift cards, but it’s a decent app for budgeting too. As long as you use it the account is free, but from 3 June 2025 a £3 inactivity fee will be charged each month after 12 months of no use.
Use is defined as:
- moving money between jars
- receiving into or transferring money out of your HyperJar account
- spend with your HyperJar card
- buy a gift card via HyperJar
It’s worth remembering that you can only load £10 or more for free into the account 10 times each month. After this there’s a £1 charge.
Starling, Monzo and Chase add new features
A handy extra for Starling users. You can now activate an alert when your balance reaches a target you set. Very handy to ensure you don’t go overdrawn.
Meanwhile over on Monzo you can now split expenses, either as a one-off or ongoing. Your friends don’t need to be on Monzo either to take part. It’s worth a look particularly if you’re in a houseshare.
Finally, Chase have added 11 new categories, making it easier to see where your money is going when spending. So for example, ‘going out’ can now be categorised as ‘Lunch’, ‘Coffee’ or ‘Drinks’. Though strangely, not ‘Dinner’ or ‘Breakfast’.
MoneyHub closing
Budgeting app MoneyHub will close to existing customers on 16 August 2025. New customers already can’t join up. This is yet another budgeting app that’s gone, following on from MoneyDashboard in 2023 and Yolt and OnTrees a little longer ago.
It means there are very few free apps to help with budgeting. Really, there’s just Snoop which has basic features (you can get a £5 Amazon voucher for signing up), though you’ll pay for things like customised categories.
Our top current accounts for May 2025
I always think it’s worth having more than one current account (find out why here) and here’s my run-down of the top accounts to have this month.