Bank Switching Deposit Requirements Explained
Deposit rules are usually simple once separated from salary, Direct Debit and balance-transfer rules. The key questions are how much must arrive, where it can come from, how long it must stay and which date starts the clock.
Current deposit thresholds across major switching offers
NatWest currently requires £1,250 to be paid into an eligible Select or Reward account within 60 days of switching. The amount can be made up of multiple payments and must remain in the account for 24 hours. The customer also needs to log into the mobile app.
Santander's £240 offer requires at least £1,500 to be paid into the Everyday Current Account within 60 days of the initial switch request. In addition, at least £200 must be funded into a Santander Regular Saver held in the customer's name. These are two separate funding conditions.
Nationwide requires £1,000 to be paid into the switched account within 31 days of the new account opening or the switch application to an existing account. first direct also requires a £1,000 deposit, but within its 45-day qualification window. Lloyds' current £200 offer is unusual among these examples because its public switch conditions focus on three transferred Direct Debits rather than a separate promotional pay-in threshold.
Where the money can come from
Nationwide gives useful examples. Its current £1,000 can come from money moved over from the old account as part of the switch, salary paid into the account after the switch or a transfer from another account not held with Nationwide. It excludes money already sitting in an existing Nationwide account and transfers from another Nationwide account.
NatWest says its £1,250 can be made through multiple payments, which allows a customer to combine permitted credits rather than rely on a single salary payment. The 24-hour holding requirement means the balance cannot simply arrive and be removed immediately if the offer is to be satisfied.
Santander's £1,500 can be paid in through one or more payments under its published campaign description. The separate £200 Regular Saver requirement is not the same money automatically being counted twice. Treat each named account and threshold as its own checklist item unless the terms explicitly allow the same transfer to satisfy both.
A deposit condition is not a minimum permanent balance
A promotional pay-in requirement normally measures money entering the account during a defined period. It is not necessarily a requirement to keep that amount in the account forever. NatWest is explicit that the qualifying £1,250 must remain for 24 hours, after which the account can be used normally subject to its terms.
Do not confuse pay-in with account balance. An account can receive £1,500 over several payments while the running balance is much lower because bills are being paid. Whether that still qualifies depends on the exact promotion wording. Read "pay in", "deposit" and "maintain a balance" as different concepts.
Similarly, the balance transferred through CASS may or may not count toward a promotional deposit condition. Nationwide explicitly says switched money can count toward its £1,000. Other banks may use different wording, so do not transfer the same assumption across providers.
Worked examples for meeting the threshold safely
Suppose you switch to NatWest with £600 arriving from the old account and then transfer £650 from an external savings account. That totals £1,250. If both credits qualify and the required amount remains for 24 hours, the funding condition can be met without your salary being involved.
For Nationwide, an old-account balance of £400 moved through CASS plus a £600 salary credit can reach the current £1,000 requirement, subject to the current offer terms. You still need the two Direct Debits, debit-card payment and other conditions.
For Santander, paying £1,500 into the Everyday Current Account does not eliminate the separate requirement to fund the Regular Saver with at least £200. A customer with only £1,500 of spare cash should plan the timing carefully rather than assuming one temporary transfer automatically completes both tasks.
Evidence and timing for deposit conditions
Keep statements or transaction screenshots showing the incoming credits and dates. If the bank requires money to remain for a set time, keep evidence of the balance across that period. A transaction list showing only the incoming payment may not prove a 24-hour holding rule.
Record the correct start date for the window. NatWest measures its activity within 60 days of switching, while first direct uses 45 days from account opening and Nationwide uses 31 days from opening or the application to switch an existing account. These clocks are not interchangeable.
If the bank later says the money came from an ineligible source, ask it to identify the exact term. A written complaint is stronger when it includes the offer version, source account, dates and amounts rather than only saying that the account was funded. If the qualifying amount is built from several payments, keep the full sequence rather than only the last transfer. That makes it possible to prove the cumulative threshold and the time at which it was first reached.
BankOfferScout editorial view
The editorial lens on Bank Switching Deposit Requirements is deliberately practical: model whether every required condition is realistic before you start, then judge eligibility, deadlines, switching mechanics and the ongoing value of the destination account. This reduces the chance that a temporary headline benefit dominates a decision it should not control.
Our editorial view on Bank Switching Deposit Requirements starts with practical fit rather than headline appeal. We stress-test the comparison for starting a process before confirming a condition that later disqualifies you. If two options are close, simpler conditions and a better fit for normal behaviour can be more valuable than a marginal numerical edge that is easy to lose.
Before acting on Bank Switching Deposit Requirements, verify exclusions, pay-ins, account history and deadlines using the provider switching page, incentive terms and destination-account tariff. If the answer depends on a rule outside the provider, confirm it through the Current Account Switch Service or another authoritative process source. BankOfferScout supplies the decision framework rather than freezing live product data in time.
Sources and related guides
Deposit requirements were checked against live provider pages on 30 September 2026. Future updates should verify the threshold, trigger date, permitted funding sources and any holding period separately for each bank. Do not reuse Nationwide's explicit funding examples as if they were universal rules for NatWest, Santander or first direct. When a provider changes the threshold, update the worked examples and the cash-flow explanation together so the article remains internally consistent.
- NatWest - £200 offer
- Santander - £240 offer
- Nationwide - £175 offer
- first direct - £210 offer
- Lloyds - £200 offer
Related BankOfferScout guides: Future reviews should also verify whether money transferred automatically as part of CASS counts toward the threshold. Nationwide currently gives an explicit answer, but other providers can define qualifying deposits differently.
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