Still no rate rise from Yorkshire?

I believe ''bonus interest'' is a separate matter to ''cashback''. Yorkshire Bdg Soc webpage with basic details of First Time Buyer savings account
http://www.ybs.co.uk/savings/regular/ftb/index.jsp includes :

''To receive the bonus interest and cashback all account holders must be parties to the Yorkshire Building Society mortgage applied for.''

''Once you have been issued with a full mortgage offer from the Society, any accrued bonus will be added to your balance''

3.20% is the rate ''excluding conditional bonus'' - according to Yorkshire BS page re interest on First Time Buyer account, at :

http://www.ybs.co.uk/savings/interest_rates/firsttime.jsp

Hope this helps you, sly_dog_jonah (+ other interested readers).

Compound wrote: »

I don’t wish to rehearse again the arguments on the other thread, but I do not agree that YBS ‘clearly state’. The word ‘calendar’ or even the phrase ‘terms and conditions’ do not appear in descriptions of how the RS works. I think Kazza’s interpretation is sensible but the fact is, ‘11 out of 12 months in an account year … An account year starts from the date of opening’ is ambiguous. Most posters on the other thread seem to be in favour of delaying their 13th payment. Come 28 August, I very much look forward to hearing that Kazza gets the high interest rate on the whole balance.

Your over complicating things. There is absolutely no need to delay payments. In fact doing so could cause more problems should a payment arrive late - possibly leading to the customer exceeding the maximum monthly payment or *not making a payment at all in a month.

*Which could cause problems if this occurs again during an account year.

Taken from YBS Regular Saver T&C's:

How much can I save?
Save between £10 and £500 per month.

Note that it doesn't specify a date in the month that payment must be made. Note also that it does not state in the terms and conditions that making 13 payments will result in the bonus being lost. As it doesn't specify this in the terms and conditions that I signed up to when I opened the account, I don't see how they could penalise the customer. Lets not forget that the account is designed for monthly saving, I can't see why they would penalise the customer when they haven't exceeded the maximum that can be saved per month?

If you want to qualify for the bonus rate of interest you must save in at least 11 out of the 12 months in an account year...

The "at least" part of the quote above points to YBS saying that as a minimum your account must receive payments in 11 out of the 12 months in an account year. It doesn't refer to an instance where a customer is making 13 payments - which they must realise could occur because of when they launched the account. What you're suggesting is anyone opening this account towards the end of any month could have a problem if they made a 13th payment before their account anniversary. I think it is perfectly ok to continue making payments up to a total of £500 per calendar month, as stipulated in the T&C's.

Kazza242 wrote: »

Your over complicating things. There is absolutely no need to delay payments. In fact doing so could cause more problems should a payment arrive late - possibly leading to the customer exceeding the maximum monthly payment or *not making a payment at all in a month.

*Which could cause problems if this occurs again during an account year.

Taken from YBS Regular Saver T&C's:



Note that it doesn't specify a date in the month that payment must be made. Note also that it does not state in the terms and conditions that making 13 payments will result in the bonus being lost. As it doesn't specify this in the terms and conditions that I signed up to when I opened the account, I don't see how they could penalise the customer. Lets not forget that the account is designed for monthly saving, I can't see why they would penalise the customer when they haven't exceeded the maximum that can be saved per month?



The "at least" part of the quote above points to YBS saying that as a minimum your account must receive payments in 11 out of the 12 months in an account year. It doesn't refer to an instance where a customer is making 13 payments - which they must realise could occur because of when they launched the account. What you're suggesting is anyone opening this account towards the end of any month could have a problem if they made a 13th payment before their account anniversary. I think it is perfectly ok to continue making payments up to a total of £500 per calendar month, as stipulated in the T&C's.

my opinion is that the 13th payment should be made on or after the start of the new account year

re compounds other point, yorkshire RS was increased on 28th jan 2007 following that base rate increase, yorkshire didnt pass on the first base rate increase following launch of the regular saver account one can say that rise was factored into the launch rate of the regular saver all other base rate increases have been passed on in full ( 2 i think lol)

Kazza242 wrote: »

No, I don't think so. I'm interpreting YBS' T&C's in the straightforward sense that the "save between £10 and £500 per month" part supersedes much of the account year section.

But that is something you have assumed. It could be the case that the definition of an account year supersedes the "save between £10 and £500 per month" statement. After all, these 'months' are "months in an account year" in the "T&Cs".

No, I definitely don't think that this is allowed. By "month" I'm pretty sure they are referring to calendar month here. I don't know of any regular savers that don't go by the calendar month - and I've got quite a few!:D . Do you or anyone?

I don't know of any that define an account year consisting of 12 months ("11 out of the 12 months in an account year … An account year starts from the date of opening") and then use a completely different measure of a "month" elsewhere in the T&Cs.

Again, the T&C's seems to lean toward the minimum number of payments that can be made in an account year and not the maximum. If it said that making more than 12 payments in an account year would lead to a loss of the bonus rate, then I would be inclined to agree with you. However, it doesn't say this so I'm not going to "disadvantage" myself by assuming the negative when no such thing is outlined in the T&C's. Anyway, savers can adopt whatever strategy they want with their regular saver. I'm not going to delay any of my payments. I just can't see there being a problem if I don't exceed the maximum allowed per month...

And again, to me, "11 out of the 12" suggests both a minimum and a maximum. In fact, to me it is quite simply impossible to make a 13 payments (one payment per month) in a 12 month account year without using two different definitions of 'month'.

The point I'm trying to make here is the so-called "T&Cs", for want of a better word, of this account are incongruous, ambiguous and wholly open to interpretation. It's up to you if you want to assume the negative or not, but there is nothing explicit in those "T&Cs" that state that you cannot make 13 payments every year, and you seem to be assuming the negative there. Personally, without a proper written down set of T&Cs that actually make sense, I wouldn't take any risks, including claiming those perks usually afforded to regular savings accountholders.

masonic wrote:

But that is something you have assumed. It could be the case that the definition of an account year supersedes the "save between £10 and £500 per month" statement. After all, these 'months' are "months in an account year" in the "T&Cs".

You and Compound are also making "an assumption" and a negative one at that. I agree that YBS could have made things a tad clearer. However, many financial institutions do not spell out everything in minute detail, so I use my common sense to work out the most likely meaning. So far I've never been wrong on this and I really don't think I'm wrong in this case either.

I think some of you are getting too bogged down with this argument of the "account year" as well as the interpretation of a "month". If you opened your YBS regular saver on say the 24th of September and then made your second payment on October 1st, I presume that would be breaching the T&C's according to your interpretation of what constitutes a "month".

So did everyone that has this account keep their monthly payment dates the same each month? E.g. open the account on the 15th Sep, making the next payment on 15th October because they think the month means the 15th - 15th? I don't think the majority of people would have done this - only those that opened their accounts at the start of a month would probably keep their payment dates the same. Therefore, if the T&C's can be breached in this way don't you think someone on this website would have received a letter from YBS about this by now? From what I've seen on this website most MSE's tend to open regular savers late in the month and then bring their SO date forward to early in the month.

Compound wrote:

Quite. I find extraordinary the suggestion that we should study the T&C of other building societies to learn how the Yorkshire account works.

May I ask where this was suggested Compound? If you are referring to my post where I said:

By "month" I'm pretty sure they are referring to calendar month here. I don't know of any regular savers that don't go by the calendar month - and I've got quite a few! . Do you or anyone?

I think as you seem to be leaning towards a different interpretation of what a month is I think it is a perfectly reasonable question to ask if anyone knows of any other regular savers that don't use the calendar month to determine when payments are allowed. As no one has yet come up with any regular savers that don't use this approach then I think my interpretation makes sense.

I see that in the other thread post 25 Compound you seem to question BLF's suggestion that after the 12th month the next payment cannot be made until after the anniversary of account opening. Anyway, there isn't long to wait to find out either way, as my 12th £500 payment will be credited on the 2nd July and I have no intention of not making another payment for 7-8 weeks just on taking the negative assumption of YBS' statement "Earn a bonus rate of interest if you save in at least 11 months out of 12 in an account year". As I did on the LTSB thread, I will post the amount of interest I've been credited.