A little nutty. Entirely fictional. No real banking here ↗

Current accounts · Products · FROM THE ACORNBANK FOREST

Overdreyft Buffer — A Completely Made-Up Customer Story

A buffer, not a savings pot. The model applies interest only to the amount above £50 and shows what a shortfall costs over several durations. There is no real credit facility to draw on.

A bank card resting on a leaf ledger.
A fictional bank, a real sense of humour. All people, places, products and figures are invented. No real banking or financial advice. About this demo.

Demo rate card29.9% EAR (variable), with the first £50.00 interest-free

The pound values and percentages on this page are invented AcornBank product terms, chosen for a realistic bank-style example. They are not current market offers, an invitation to deposit or invest money or a forecast of what a real bank will pay.

Product detailDemo terms
Account typeArranged overdraft
Rate, reward or charge29.9% EAR (variable), with the first £50.00 interest-free
Illustrative credit limit£0.00 to £1,000.00
AccessUp to £1,000 arranged borrowing; the first £50 is interest-free in this demo model
Eligibility in the scenarioAn adult Acorn Everyday story customer with an assumed arranged limit
FeesNo model account fee
CurrencyGBP (£), used solely for fictional calculations

How much could a shortfall cost?

Borrowed balanceAfter 7 daysAfter 30 daysAfter 90 days
£50.00£0.00£0.00£0.00
£100.00£0.25£1.09£3.33
£250.00£1.01£4.35£13.33
£500.00£2.26£9.78£29.98
£1,000.00£4.78£20.65£63.30

Assumptions: constant borrowed principal, no deposits, additional borrowing or fees; the first £50.00 remains interest-free. Estimated cost = max(balance − buffer, 0) × [(1 + 0.299)^(days/365) − 1]. This converts the illustrative EAR into an equivalent daily-compounding model and rounds only the final charge. It is an estimate, not a contractual daily posting schedule. An overdraft costs money; it does not produce a return.

Overdreyft Buffer is arranged overdraft in the Current accounts range, used for illustrating the cost of a short-lived current-account shortfall. Its live rate card, summary and worked tables sit above this text and update whenever the product record changes.

Hazel puts the rate card to work

Hazel Twitch wanted illustrating the cost of a short-lived current-account shortfall. Her first question was how soon the funds would be needed, not how large a percentage would fit on a poster. The branch manager opened the Overdreyft Buffer rate card, circled the access rule and made a separate line for fees. Pip tried to classify the pencil as a deductible snack; the ledger remained unconvinced.

Hazel follows the example below exactly, rather than assuming the headline rate applies to every amount for every day. This character and quotation-free account are invented, not a real customer review.

See the whole Current accounts range or compare every product on the rates page.

What the example does not promise

All figures are invented and shown to make the demo useful to read and crawl. No money is held, no application is available, and no deposit-protection, regulatory or tax-wrapper status is claimed. Calculations do not account for personal tax, inflation or unstated changes in rates. The fictional bank manager can guarantee only that the next paragraph contains no real acorns.

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AcornBank: entirely fictional banking, exceptionally committed squirrels.