Coronavirus: help and support

We’re here to support you if you have been impacted by coronavirus. So if you’re going to struggle to make your monthly payment, you may want to consider asking for a payment holiday. 

A payment holiday is subject to approval. If accepted, you won’t need to make the usual repayments for up to 3 months, this could be a reduced amount or a full break. We have support available if you need more guidance. Payment holidays may not be for everyone. The amount you owe will go up and you will pay more interest overall.

Please visit our Money Worries page to find out more ways we may be able to help you.

We offer payment holidays on:

• Mortgages
  During your payment holiday, we’ll still add interest to your mortgage. At the end of the payment holiday, the amount you pay each month will go up, this is to cover the payments and interest charges you’ll miss while you take a break. Learn more about payment holidays for your Bank of Scotland mortgage or your Halifax mortgage including how to apply online.

• Credit cards 
  If your payment is due now and you can’t make the minimum payment, we won't charge a late payment fee or remove any promotional interest rates in the short term.

• Loans
  If your loan repayment is due within the next 7 working days, you will still need to make this payment and any repayment holiday you are given will start the following month. If you have a joint loan, any repayment holiday will be given to both of you. If your repayment is due now and you’re unable to make the repayment, we won't charge you a fee.
  
  Our support tool helps you explore options for your credit card or loan payment holiday.
  
  There's no need to cancel your direct debit. But if you have, you need to make sure you can start repayments again after the repayment holiday. You can do this by re-instating your direct debit.

• Car finance
  At the end of the payment holiday we will  work out how much extra you need to pay, based on the interest rate shown in your agreement. This means you will pay more as you take longer to pay back the amount you borrowed. We will add this amount to your agreement. To request a payment holiday log into your online car finance account  and follow the instructions. Find out more. 

• Home Insurance
  Please contact us on 0345 122 1511 or go to our home insurance page to discuss how we can best help you, for example by offering a payment holiday or reviewing your level of cover.

End of your payment holiday

You may be coming close to the end of your payment holiday period. Remember there is no need to contact us, we’ll be in touch before your current payment holiday ends on how we can help.

If you’re in a position to resume your payments after your break, we strongly recommend that you do so to keep the amount of interest you pay as low as possible. If you are worried about being able to restart your full payments, there are ways we can help you.

Mortgages

Car finance 

Our support tool helps you explore your options at the end of your credit card or loan payment holiday.

Payment Protection Insurance 

If you have Payment Protection Insurance you may be able to claim under your policy if you are unable to work due to sickness or unemployment. Visit our Payment Protection Insurance page for details.

If you need access to your savings held in a fixed term account, we will be waiving the charge.

To do this, we will need to close your account and transfer all the funds to a different account. For Junior Cash ISAs, the money in the account belongs to the child and cannot be accessed until the child turns 18. This means that withdrawals from Junior Cash ISAs are not permitted.

To access your savings, please call us and we will arrange for your money to be moved into an account of your choice.

Support for your personal current account

We are here to support our customers during the impact of coronavirus and if you are going to struggle we are still here to help. It might be that you have or expect to have a temporary loss or reduction in income for you or other members of your household because of coronavirus. If so, up to 31st October 2020, you can ask to have the temporary interest-free amount of up to £500 for a further 3 months on your personal current account arranged overdraft.  

To ask for a further temporary 3-month period of up to £500 interest-free on your arranged overdraft, please apply on or before 31st October 2020. If you need further support, or help with completing this form, then please contact us.

Apply here

In addition to the interest-free amount, if you have an arranged overdraft limit of more than £500 on your personal current account we may be able to offer further support for your borrowing. If your application for the interest-free amount is successful and we can see that you are eligible, we will get back in touch with you with more information.

If you are facing, or expect to face, financial difficulties, you can find help and support available on our money worries page. For further support, you can find out more about other free independent advice.

You can call our dedicated team for information and support which may include applying a temporary interest freeze, setting up a repayment plan or refinancing your debt.

Overdraft limit increase

If you need to increase your existing arranged overdraft limit, you don’t need to call us – you can apply online.

• Using our mobile banking app, select ‘Overdraft’ from your bank account menu and follow the on-screen instructions.
  
• Using Internet Banking, just log in and select ‘More actions’ on the bank account that you have the arranged overdraft set up on. Then select ‘Overdrafts’ and follow the on-screen instructions.

Please find more information about our Internet Banking or help on signing up .

Apply for an arranged overdraft

If you want to apply for an overdraft, you can do this online.

• Using our mobile banking app, select ‘Overdraft’ from your bank account menu and follow the on-screen instructions.
  
• Using Internet Banking, select ‘Our products and services’, then ‘Overdraft’ and follow the on-screen instructions.

You may have borrowing across a range of products such as mortgages, arranged overdrafts, loans, store cards and credit cards. A regular review can be really helpful for managing your money as effectively as possible. There are a few options available which may help, subject to eligibility.

1. Combining borrowing to reduce monthly payments or the amount you pay overall.
2. Changing the term of your mortgage to reduce your monthly payment or pay off faster to reduce the interest you pay overall.
3. Switching to a new mortgage deal with a lower interest rate, to reduce the monthly amount you pay.

 1. Combining borrowing to reduce monthly payments or the amount you pay overall

If you have multiple borrowing products like store cards, credit cards, personal loans or arranged overdrafts it may help to consolidate them into a single product with a single monthly payment. This will help you budget more easily as you won’t need to worry about multiple payments. It could also reduce the amount you pay monthly and the amount of interest paid overall – but it’s important to understand how much interest you are paying in relation to each. Sometimes combining all borrowing into one or extending a product term can reduce how much you pay each month, but could result in you paying more interest overall.

Balance Transfer

• If you have multiple credit cards, it may help to keep all your credit balances in one place and transfer high interest balances to a card with a lower rate. There may be a fee to transfer. Our balance transfer page.

Debt Consolidation/Refinance 

• Consolidating your debt under one loan may help as unlike a store card, credit card or arranged overdraft, a loan gives you a clear date that your borrowing will be paid off by. More information about debt consolidation. 
• If you are a Bank of Scotland or Halifax mortgage customer and have larger borrowing needs to consolidate, you might be able to apply for additional borrowing on your mortgage. Similar to an unsecured loan, you’ll have one monthly payment and a clear date of when your borrowing will be paid off. Information about additional borrowing.
  

You could lose your home if you don’t keep up your mortgage repayments.

2. Changing the term of your mortgage to reduce your monthly payment or pay off faster to reduce the interest you pay overall

You can ask to change the mortgage term from what we originally agreed with you. This might be because:

• You think you can afford to pay more and would like to pay off your mortgage sooner, reducing the interest you pay over the life of your mortgage.
  Note: if you are in a fixed term mortgage there may be early repayment charges, so you need to work out what is most appropriate for you.
  or;
• You want to reduce your monthly payments by extending your mortgage term. You will need to get our agreement to do this.

Extending your mortgage term can reduce your monthly cost, but remember by repaying your mortgage over a longer period this will however increase the amount of interest you pay overall. Find out more.

3. Mortgage product transfers to reduce the monthly amount you pay

You may be able to switch to a cheaper deal by applying for a Mortgage Product Transfer, early repayment charges may apply, visit our switching deals page for more information.

You could lose your home if you don’t keep up your mortgage repayments.

If you would like some suggestions on budgeting and planning for the future we have created a helpful page on how to make the most out of your money.