These conditions apply to the Sainsbury's Bank Internet Saver account. Before you first open or use an Internet Saver account you must accept these conditions. It's important to read them before deciding whether to accept them. If you apply for a Sainsbury's Bank Internet Saver account jointly with another person then the other person must agree to be bound by these conditions too. If that person does not agree to be bound by these conditions the account will be closed and the funds returned to the account you transferred them from, or returned to you by cheque if your opening payment was made by cheque.
These conditions explain how Sainsbury's Bank Internet Saver accounts work. There are also some conditions which apply under general law. We have not set these out here.
You may want to print out and keep a copy of these conditions in case you want to check how they apply to your Sainsbury's Bank Internet Saver account. However, you can look at them online at any time.
1 Words with special meanings
In these conditions we have put the following words in bold type because they have special meanings.
- Your account - each and all of your Sainsbury's Bank Internet Saver accounts.
- Your additional security questions - the extra information you give us which will help us identify you. This includes your answers to the additional security questions we set and the additional security question where we ask you to give us both the question and the answer.
- Bank working day - any day which is not a Saturday, Sunday, 2nd January, or English bank or public holiday.
- Pre-nominated account - a sterling account which you choose to pay money into from your account.
- Username and password - the username and password you chose to identify yourself when you use your account and the Sainsbury's Bank online service.
- A withdrawal - is made when we have carried out your instructions to pay money out of your account (for example, when we have taken the amount you want to transfer to your pre-nominated account).
2 How do you use a Sainsbury's Bank Internet Saver account?
2.1 The smallest amount you can open an account with is £1. You must keep at least £1 in your account at any time. You may have to set the account up before you can make the opening payment into it. We may allow you to open more than one account.
2.2 You cannot have an account unless you are 18 years old or over.
2.3 We will pay interest each year on the anniversary of the date the opening payment was made into your account. Interest will be added to your account.
2.4 You can withdraw money from your account by transferring it to a pre-nominated account. You do not need to give advance notice before you make withdrawals.
2.5 You can only open and run your account over the internet using the Sainsbury's Bank online service. Every time you use our online service you must enter your username and password. We will also require you to answer one or more of the additional security questions. You can change your username or password at any time by following the instructions on the screen.
2.6 We may limit the number of Internet Saver accounts you can have. We will tell you about this when you first open an account and if we change the limit.
2.7 You can only have your account (and access our online service) for personal use. You must not use it as a sole trader, company, partnership or other kind of business account or as a club, charity or trust account. This means that you cannot hold money in your account for someone else. You cannot hold an account if you live abroad and you cannot send us instructions about your account over the internet from abroad.
2.8 We do not have to accept that anyone, apart from you, has any right to or interest in the money in your account (for example, if you are keeping some or all of the money in your account for someone else).
2.9 We will only accept instructions from you, or anyone who has a legal right to give us instructions (for example, your trustee if you are made bankrupt), or anyone you have authorised in writing (for example, someone who has a power of attorney for you) so long as we have accepted that written authority.
2.10 We may require you to answer one or more of the additional security questions and/or enter your password again before we can accept instructions about your account.
2.11 We may limit the amount you, or someone else, can pay into your account if we think this is necessary to:
- run our business lawfully;
- make sure our financial regulator approves of the way we run our business; or
- take account of changes in market conditions.
2.12 We may limit the amount you can take out of your account in any month if we think this is necessary to run our business lawfully and in a way which our regulator approves of.
2.13 When you use the Sainsbury's Bank online service you must follow any instructions we give you. You are responsible for making sure that your computer, software and other equipment can be used for our online service.
2.14 On each account you may choose up to 19 pre-nominated accounts. You must hold any pre-nominated accounts with a bank or building society which is part of the UK clearing system. If you have more than one Sainsbury's Bank account registered with the Sainsbury's Bank online service you can transfer funds between them by inter account transfer.
2.15 The maximum amount that any one customer can hold in accounts (whether in their sole name or jointly) is £2,000,000.
3 If you pay money into your account, how long do you have to wait before you can take it out?
3.1 Transfer from Sainsbury's Bank online accounts - If you pay money into your account by transferring it before 4pm from an account which is another Sainsbury's Bank account registered with the Sainsbury's Bank online service, you can take the money out of your account on the following day. If the transfer takes place after 4pm, you can take the money out of your account on the day after the following day.
3.2 Transfer from other accounts - If you pay money into your account by transferring it from another account either with Sainsbury's Bank or an account held with another bank or building society, you can take the money out of your account on the day the payment reaches your account.
3.3 Cheques - If you pay a sterling cheque into your account by post, you can take the amount of that cheque out of your account on the day after the seventh bank working day after we get it. This includes the day we get it. For example, if we receive a cheque at our processing centre on a Tuesday, you can take the money out of your account on the Thursday of the following week as long as neither the Tuesday nor any of the weekdays in between is a bank or public holiday.
If we get your cheque on a day which is not a bank working day, we will deal with it as if we had got it on the next bank working day. For example, if we get your cheque on a Saturday, we will deal with it as if we had got it on the next Monday.
3.4 You can only pay sterling cheques into your account. You can send your cheque to us at the address shown on our web site with a completed bank giro credit slip. We will give you a supply of bank giro credit slips and reply paid envelopes to use with your account.
3.5 If you pay a cheque into your account and we let you take some or all of the amount of the cheque out of your account, that does not mean that the cheque has been fully cleared. If the cheque is returned to us without it being paid, we may take the amount of the cheque (and any interest we have paid on it) out of your account.
4 Paying interest
4.1 If the money in your account is at least the minimum amount we set for paying interest, we will pay interest on your balance at the rate or rates we set. We may fix a new or changed minimum amount under condition 13.1, 13.2 or 13.3. Except when you open your account, we will give you at least 30 days' notice of any new or changed minimum amount. We may pay different rates of interest to different types of customer. You can find out details of the current minimum amount and interest rates on our web site at www.sainsburysbank.co.uk.
4.2 Transfer - If you pay money into your account by transferring it from another account, we will pay interest on it (if we pay interest under condition 4.1) from the day after the payment reaches your account. For example, if your transfer reaches your account on a Tuesday, we will pay interest on that amount from the Wednesday.
4.3 Cheques - If you pay a sterling cheque into your account by post, we will pay interest on it (if we pay interest under condition 4.1) from the day after the second bank working day after we get it. This includes the day we get it. For example, if we receive a cheque at our processing centre on a Tuesday, we will pay interest on it from the Thursday as long as neither the Tuesday nor any of the days in between is a bank or public holiday.
If we get your cheque on a day which is not a bank working day, we will deal with it as if we had got it on the next bank working day. For example, if we get your cheque on a Saturday, we will pay interest on it from the Wednesday as long as it is credited to your account on the Monday provided none of the weekdays in between is a bank or public holiday.
4.4 We work out the interest daily and pay it into your account on the last day of each interest period. Before we pay it, we will take off any interest which you owe us from your account being overdrawn (under condition 9).
4.5 We will stop paying interest on the amount of a withdrawal the day after it is made.
4.6 If you or we close your account, we will follow the steps in condition 4.5 to work out the interest we have to pay you on the day it is closed (also see condition 9.7) unless we have allowed you to transfer the total amount you have in your account to another account with us. In this case, we will pay interest on the interest payment date of the new account.
5 When can we take money out of your account?
5.1 We can take money out of your account to cover:
- each withdrawal;
- each cheque and any other item which is paid into your account but later returned to us unpaid;
- the interest which you have to pay us on any overdraft;
- any charge which you owe us on your account; and
- any loss or expense we suffer in connection with your account unless condition 8.4 applies.
We may do any of these if your account is in credit or overdrawn or if it goes overdrawn because of the amount that we take out of your account. We can also take money out of your account under condition 5.2.
5.2 If any money is overdue for payment on any other account you or (if your account is in joint names) any of you have with us, we may take the amount you owe us out of your account (unless regulations do not allow us to). We can do this without giving you notice.
6 What happens if a cheque is out of date?
If you want to pay a cheque into your account:
- more than 6 months after the date shown on the cheque; or
- after the "expiry date" (if there is one shown on the cheque).
you will have to ask the person who made it out to you to write a new cheque or re-date the old cheque and put their initials next to the change. If you give us an out-of-date cheque, we may return it to you.
7 Stopping payments
Important: You cannot stop a transfer to a pre-nominated account.
8 Security details
8.1 For administration or security reasons, if we ask you to, you must choose a new username or change your password or additional security questions before you give (or carry on giving) us instructions for your account.
8.2 You must not write down or let anyone else know your password, or username, or additional security questions, and the fact that they are for use with the Sainsbury's Bank online service.
8.3 If you think that someone else knows your password or any of your additional security questions, you must change it online as soon as possible. You will need to phone the Sainsbury's Bank online helpdesk on 0845 850 0092 before you can change your additional security questions. If you have difficulty changing your password, you must phone the online helpdesk straightaway.
8.4 You will not be responsible for any transactions made using your password or any of your additional security questions after you have told us that someone else might know them or be using them unless they are used by you or on your behalf or you have been fraudulent or grossly negligent.
8.5 We may give the police or any prosecuting authority (for example, the Crown Prosecution Service) any information they need if we think it will help them find out if someone else is using your username, password, or any of your additional security questions.
8.6 You must only use your username, password, and additional security questions when you use our online service. You can give the Sainsbury's Bank online helpdesk your username if you need help to change your password or you need to report that someone else knows your password, username, or additional security questions. You must not tell anyone your password or additional security questions.
9 Overdrawn accounts
9.1 You must not allow your account to go overdrawn.
9.2 If we charge interest, make charges on your account or carry out a withdrawal or other transaction and this makes your account go overdrawn, this does not mean that we have agreed to allow you to have an overdraft.
9.3 If your account goes overdrawn, we will charge you interest at the rate or rates we set. You must also immediately pay us the amount that you are overdrawn (and any charges).
9.4 We may change the rate of interest we charge on your overdraft (see conditions 13 and 14). You can find details of any current rates on our web site.
9.5 We will work out how much interest you owe us for each day your account is overdrawn. Each year we will take off any interest which you owe us and pay the difference into your account.
If you owe us more interest than we owe you, we may:
- carry forward the difference until the next time we pay interest into your account; or
- add the interest you owe us to your overdraft (or take it off your credit balance).
9.6 If your account goes overdrawn, we may transfer some or all of the money you owe us on your account from any other account you have with us (whether in sterling or any other currency). If it is a joint account, we will only do this if the conditions of that account allow us to do so and there are enough cleared funds in that account. We can make this transfer without giving you notice. We will not take the money from an account which, according to our records, you are holding on behalf of someone else, (for example, as trustee or executor).
9.7 If your account is closed, we will follow the steps in condition 9.5 to work out the interest you have to pay us. You will also have to pay any overdraft and charges which you owe us.
9.8 We may make charges in connection with any overdraft on your account under condition 10.1.
9.9 We may also change the amount we charge you, make new or different charges in connection with any overdraft on your account under condition 10.2, 10.3 or 10.4.
10 Charges
10.1 We can make charges on your account, or for services or facilities we make available to you (including our online service). You can find details of any current charges on our web site.
10.2 We can change the amounts we charge you, make new or different charges and change the way you have to pay charges, to reflect changes to the costs of providing the account or our online service or any services or facilities available on your account including any changes caused by inflation.
10.3 We can also change the amounts we charge you, make new or different charges and change how you have to pay charges for any other valid reason.
10.4 If you belong to a category of customer who we reasonably think should receive special treatment, we may also change the amounts of charges, make new or different charges and change how you have to pay charges to make the charges more favourable to you. If we change our charges under this condition, we will give at least 30 days' notice to the customers affected by the change (but we need not give notice of the change to the customers who are not affected).
10.5 Condition 14.4 explains when we will give you notice of changes in our charges for standard account services.
10.6 If you ask to use a special service (for example, you request a CHAPS payment), we will tell you the charge.
11 Your statements
11.1 We will provide online statements for your account which you can view using our online service. If you require a copy statement please phone the Sainsbury's Bank online helpdesk on 0845 850 0092.
11.2 You should check your statements and let us know as soon as you can if you think that they include any information which seems to be wrong.
12 Closing your account
12.1 You may close your account at any time. You must pay us anything you owe on your account (see condition 9).
12.2 We may close your account by giving you reasonable written notice. Normally the notice will be at least 30 days. But if there are exceptional circumstances, for example there is evidence of fraud, we can close your account immediately. We will tell you as soon as possible if we do this. If you have an address outside the UK or you send us instructions about your account from abroad, we can close your account. We will give you notice, but we will not let you use your account or our online service during the notice period.
12.3 If we close your account under condition 12.2 we will return your money to you along with any interest we owe you on your account.
12.4 If we believe that we have lost touch with each other, for example, if letters addressed to you are returned undelivered, and you have not paid money into or taken money out of your account for at least 3 years, then we can treat your account as inactive which means that there will be no further activity on your account until we hear from you.
12.5 If we treat your account as inactive under condition 12.4 we will treat the account as active again (reactivate) if:
- you ask us to; or
- we think it is reasonable to reactivate it.
If we reactivate your account, we will make any money in the account available to you, together with any interest which the money would have earned if the account had not been treated as inactive. This interest will be taxable in the tax year in which it is paid even if it has been earned in an earlier tax year. This could affect your tax position.
12.6 If we close your account:
- we can still take the money out of your account under condition 5.1 or 5.2 or to cover any withdrawal; and
- you will still have to pay back any overdraft, interest or charges which you owe us on your account.
13 When can we change these conditions and the interest rates?
13.1 If we give you at least 30 days' notice, we can change these conditions, or the ones which apply to our online service or any services or facilities on your account if it is reasonable to make the change:
a to reflect changes in market conditions;
b to reflect changes by banks and other organisations offering similar services in the timing or method they adopt for paying interest on deposit accounts;
c to reflect changes in the general deposit-taking practice of banks and other organisations offering similar services (including the terms on which they offer similar products);
d to reflect a decision or recommendation made by, or a requirement of, a court, ombudsman, regulator or similar body or an undertaking to the Director General of Fair Trading;
e to reflect changes to the law, codes of practice or the way we are regulated;
f to reflect changes to standards published by other bodies which we agree will apply to your account or our online service;
g to make them easier to understand or fairer to you; or
h to reflect changes to the way the banking system works;
i to allow us to introduce new or improved systems for looking after your account;
j to correct mistakes; or
k because:
- we take over, take control of or acquire the business of another bank or organisation offering similar services; or
- one of those things happens to us;
- and the change will make sure that our customers and the customers of the other bank or organisation are treated in a similar way if they are in similar categories.
Where we refer to "changes" in the above list, we mean changes we know or reasonably believe will happen or changes which have already taken place.
13.2 For any valid reason we can make any reasonable change to these conditions. This includes the conditions that apply to your account or the ones which apply to our online service, or any services or facilities on your account. We may do this by giving you at least 30 days' notice.
13.3 If you belong to a category of customer who we reasonably think should receive special treatment, we may also make changes to these conditions to make them more favourable to you. This includes the conditions that apply to your account, or the ones which apply to our online service, or any services or facilities on your account. If we change these conditions under 13.3, we will give at least 30 days' notice to the customers whose conditions are being changed (but we need not give notice of the change to the customers whose conditions stay the same).
13.4 If we give you at least 7 days' notice (unless it is not practicable to do so in which case we will give you as much notice as possible) we can change any of the services or facilities available on your account. We can do this if it is reasonable to make the change for the following reasons:
a to reflect changes in market conditions;
b to reflect changes in the general deposit-taking practice of banks and other organisations offering similar services (including the terms on which they offer similar products and services);
c to reflect a decision or recommendation made by, or a requirement of, a court, ombudsman, regulator or similar organisation or undertaking to the Director General of Fair Trading;
d to reflect changes to the law, codes of practice or the way we are regulated;
e to reflect changes to standards published by other organisations which we agree will apply to your account or our online service;
f to reflect changes to the way we look after your account, our online service or Sainsbury's Bank Internet Saver accounts generally (including changes in the technology we use) because of:
- the reasonable steps we have taken to change our system for managing our online service and Sainsbury's Bank Internet Saver accounts generally;
- or reasons outside our control;
g because:
- we take over, take control of or acquire the business of another bank or organisation offering similar services; or
- one of those things happens to us;
- and the change will make sure that our customers and the customers of the other bank or organisation are treated in a similar way if they are in similar categories;
or
h because someone else provides a service or facility for you, or in relation to the service, and that person changes, suspends or withdraws the service or facility, or we reasonably believe they will do so.
Where we refer to changes in the above list, we mean changes we know or reasonably believe will happen or changes which have already taken place.
13.5 Whenever condition 13.4 allows us to change our online service or any of the services or facilities available on your account or the conditions that apply to them, we may instead suspend or withdraw our online service or those services or facilities.
13.6 We can change interest rates, if it is reasonable to make the change:
a to reflect a change or changes in the base rate (that is the rate set by the Bank of England in connection with its open money market operations);
b to reflect any other changes in market conditions beyond our control;
c to reflect changes in the rates of interest which banks and other organisations offering similar services pay to customers with similar products;
d to reflect other changes in the general deposit-taking practice of banks and other organisations offering similar services;
e to reflect a decision or recommendation made by, or a requirement of, a court, ombudsman, regulator or similar body or undertaking to the Director General of Fair Trading;
f to reflect changes to the law, codes of practice or the way we are regulated;
g to reflect changes to standards published by other bodies which we agree will apply to your account or our online service;
h to reflect changes to the way we look after your account, our online service and Sainsbury's Bank Internet Saver accounts generally (including changes in the technology we use) because of:
- the steps we have taken to modernise or improve our systems for managing our online service and Sainsbury's Bank Internet Saver accounts generally; or
- reasons outside our control;
i because;
- we take over, take control of or acquire the business of another bank or organisation offering similar services; or
- one of these things happens to us;
and the change will make sure that our customers and the customers of the other bank or organisation are treated in a similar way if they are in similar categories.
Where we refer to "changes" in the above list, we mean changes we know or reasonably believe will happen or changes which have already taken place.
13.7 We can also change interest rates for any valid reason.
13.8 Changes to interest rates may apply immediately.
14. How will we tell you about any changes?
14.1 We will send you notice by e-mail or by post for any changes which we make under condition 13.4. We will tell you about any changes we make under conditions 13.6 or 13.7 in the interest rate which we may pay on your credit balance or charge you on any overdraft by putting a notice in at least three national daily newspapers, or by writing to you by email or post We will also put details on our web site at www.sainsburysbank.co.uk.
14.2 We will send you notice by e-mail or by post of any changes we make under conditions 13.1, 13.2 or 13.3 or any maximum number of accounts under condition 2.6 or any minimum amount under condition 2.7.
14.3 If we change any of our conditions under condition 13.2 (that is to say if we change them for a valid reason not set out in condition 13.1), we will send you notice by e-mail or by post. We will give notice to those customers whose terms we are changing (but we do not need to give notice of the change to those customers whose terms stay the same).
14.4 We will give you at least 30 days' notice by e-mail or post if we increase any charge, make new or different charges or change the way you have to pay charges for standard account services. We will also put details on our web site at www.sainsburysbank.co.uk.
15 What conditions apply to notices about your account?
15.1 We will send all notices by e-mail or by post. We may also send you other specific electronic notices or messages or provide you with other information online. If we send you e-mails or other electronic messages, we will send them to the last e-mail address you gave us. We will treat all notices we provide by e-mail as arriving the day after we send them. We will send all written notices or letters and paper statements to the last address you gave us. (We will treat them as arriving 48 hours after we posted them.) You must let us know straightaway if you change either your e-mail address (by giving us details online) or your postal address (by calling the Sainsbury's Bank online helpdesk on 0845 850 0092). If you do not, you may have to pay our costs of finding you or your new address.
15.2 Unless these conditions say otherwise, any notices or other communications given under them will only be valid if they are in writing.
16 What happens if you cannot look after your finances any longer?
16.1 If we are satisfied that you cannot look after your finances any longer, we will allow your account to be closed by anyone who has authority from a court. We will not allow that person to run your account other than to close it.
16.2 If it is reasonable (for example, if it is unlikely that a court order will affect your account), we may also allow your account to be closed by a person who:
- appears to be responsible for looking after your financial affairs;
- signs a declaration that he or she will only use the money in your account for your benefit; and
- shows us a certificate from a doctor which confirms that you cannot look after your finances any longer.
16.3 If we allow someone else to close your account under condition 16.1 or 16.2, you may be legally responsible for anything they do.
17 When will we stop you taking money out of your account?
17.1 We may freeze your account if we:
- reasonably think your account is being used for illegal purposes;
- find out that there is a disagreement about who owns any of the money in your account (including a disagreement between the account holders on a joint account); or
- tell you that we will close your account under condition 12.2.
If we freeze your account, you must not take any money out of your account, pay money in (unless we agree) or carry out any other transactions until we are satisfied that your account is not being used for illegal purposes or that the disagreement is settled.
17.2 We can stop you or anyone else using our online service or your account if we reasonably think that:
- someone else is trying to use the internet to use or access your account;
- the wrong username, password, or any of your additional security questions has been used for your account;
- you or someone else is using your account illegally;
- you are not keeping to these conditions; or
- someone else might know or be using your username, password, or any of your additional security questions;
We will tell you as soon as possible if we decide to do this.
18 When can we tell someone else about your account?
We may give details of your account or your name and address to anyone else if:
- the law says we must;
- we have a public duty to do so;
- this is necessary to protect our interests; or
- you ask us to give the details to someone else or agree that we can give them to someone else (for example, by making an appropriate declaration as part of your application for your account).
19 What happens if you die?
If you die, and your account is not a joint account, your personal representative must close the account. We may allow your personal representative to open a different type of account which is more appropriate for dealing with your money and to transfer the money in your account to that account.
20 Joint accounts
20.1 Conditions 20.2 to 20.5 apply to joint accounts.
20.2 These conditions apply to all of you together and to each of you separately. For example, if you owe us any money on your account, we can claim it back from either of you. Two people, but no more, can apply to invest in a joint account.
20.3 We may choose to accept the instructions of any one of you. For example we may take out of your account the amount of a withdrawal made by either of you. If you have a joint account and you tell us that you only want us to accept instructions from both of you (and not just either of you) we may close your account and, if we choose, offer each of you the opportunity to open a new account in just your name.
20.4 We may send all notices, and other information about your account, to the e-mail address or the postal address of the customer whose name appears first in our records of your account.
20.5 If you have a joint account and one of the account holders dies, we will only accept instructions from the other account holder.
21 General
21.1 Unless we agree otherwise, you must not transfer, charge or give as security to anyone else:
- your account or any part of it; or
- any of your rights under these conditions.
21.2 If we give you notice then, for administration reasons, we can change any address or phone number or web site details in these conditions, or the name of our online service or the accounts available through our online service.
21.3 For similar reasons we can also change the name of any service or facility that we may let you use on your account, without giving you notice.
21.4 You must give us an example of your signature if we ask you to.
21.5 We may monitor and record phone calls to or from us. We may do this to check any instructions you gave over the phone and to help us train our staff.
21.6 If we choose not to enforce any term that forms part of these conditions, this will not affect our right to enforce it or the rest of those terms.
21.7 Each paragraph and subparagraph in these conditions is separate from the others. This means that if we cannot enforce any one paragraph or subparagraph in these conditions, this will not affect our right to enforce any other paragraph or subparagraph.
21.8 When we refer to the Sainsbury's Bank Internet Saver account conditions, or the ones which apply to our online service, it includes any changes made to them.
21.9 These conditions are part of the legal agreement between you and us for your account. This agreement is governed by English law.
21.10 We may allow you to give your account an individual title, although you do not have to do so. We may refuse to accept a title if we think that it is offensive or defamatory.
21.11 We will not be responsible for any loss or expense you suffer if we cannot carry out a withdrawal, payment into your account or other transaction on your account, or if we cannot provide any services or facilities because of strikes, power cuts equipment not working or other causes beyond our reasonable control.
The gross rate is the contractual rate of interest payable before the deduction of income tax at the rate specified by law (currently 20%).AER stands for annual equivalent rate and illustrates what the interest would be if interest was paid and compounded each year. Net is the rate of interest paid after the deduction of lower rate tax at 20%. Variable interest paid annually. Withdrawals are by transfer to another account only.
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