ICICI no good for Savings over £40k

I would say don't keep more than 30k with ICICI as this is the FSA compensation limit.

ICICI Bank UK Ltd publish on the Internet all of their HiSAVE Account Terms and Conditions at

http://www.icicibank.co.uk/personal-banking/faqs.html#8

I have taken the following clauses, which are all of those pertinent to money transfer into and out of the HiSAVE acount into the customer's linked current account:-

18. What is the need to set up a Direct Debit?

We need to have an electronic funds transfer facility set up between your HiSAVE Savings Account and your Current Account in order to enable quick and efficient deposits into your HiSAVE Savings Account. Under no circumstances will the money be taken out of your Current Account as a one off payment or on a regular basis, unless you instruct us to do so.
You can also instruct us to withdraw money from your HiSAVE Savings Account and send it electronically to your Current Account at any point of time

19. How much time does it take to transfer funds between the HiSAVE Savings Account and the Current Account?

It normally takes three to four working days to transfer funds between your HiSAVE Savings Account and your Current Account.

21. Can I request multiple funds transfers on a single day or two consecutive days?

Yes, you may request multiple funds transfers on a single day or two consecutive days. However, we reserve the right to club requests received on a single day, and execute the transfers as a single request.

(Note: Here they us the expression "club requests". I personally take this to mean they would "bulk requests" or "add them together" but this is my own personal interpretation. To the very best of my belief there is not a verb in the English language, which is an action known as "to club requests".)

22. How long does it take to process multiple funds transfer requests made on a single day?

Our endeavour is to process multiple funds transfer requests within the stipulated time limit. However there is a possibility that for multiple requests, every subsequent request may get delayed by four to five working days. This delay is due to the time taken to set up new Direct Debits in case multiple transfers are requested. We reserve the right to set up new Direct Debits in case multiple requests are received.

23. How long does it take to process multiple funds transfer requests made on two consecutive days?

We advocate the set up of standing instructions to transfer money at a defined periodicity (Recurring Funds Transfer Facility). If you do choose to make multiple transfer requests on consecutive days, there could be a delay of four to five working days for the second and every subsequent transfer requests. This delay is due to the time taken to set up another Direct Debit in case of multiple transfers.

24. Is there a limit on the amount that is transferred to/from the Linked account on a single day?

There is no limit for inbound transactions. However, transactions from the HiSAVE account to your current account are limited to £10000 per transaction. In order to transfer more than £10000, you can initiate multiple funds transfer requests.

25. Where can I access my HiSAVE Savings Account?

Your HiSAVE Savings account is accessible to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It means banking anytime, anywhere as long as you have an internet connection. Transactions are done in real time so your account balance and transaction history is always up-to-date.

Clause 22 is quite vague in its meaning.

One could be optimistic that ICICI would attempt to add together all of a series of individual £10,000 requests and do them as a single transaction on the day requested for transfer to reduce their own paperwork and transfer costs and be customer and transaction efficient.

But they go on to say in Clause 22, "However there is a possibility that for multiple requests, every subsequent request may get delayed by four to five working days. This delay is due to the time taken to set up new Direct Debits in case multiple transfers are requested. We reserve the right to set up new Direct Debits in case multiple requests are received."

What on earth does this mean?

Using as an example a request to transfer 5 x £10,000 (or £50,000) out of the HiSAVE account, one could take it to mean they will either add the 5 transactions together - or they wont.

If they didn't then Clause 22 might be taken to mean it could take them 5 x 'up to five working days for each transaction' thus making a total of 25 working days. (NB. "Working days are NOT the same as "Calendar days" either.)

We then move on to what they say about transfers in Clause 23 (see above).

However, Clause 24, if read optimistically and taken as being pertinent only to 'Transfers OUT', which it actually only is about deals with a large transfer request very simply by implying how a series of £10,000 transfer requests could and would be bulked together.

It is my interpretation that Clause 24 is therefore about 'large Transfers OUT' and the other clauses are about 'numerous transfers' and the banking difficulties associated with them.

Does anyone have any other comments or views?

I have not yet spoke to anyone at the bank about this myself. They are exceedingly and notoriously difficult to deal with. Indeed, our own English culture does not marry well to that experienced by the Indian staff, who may often be taken to reside on some far distant unobjective planet. They do seem to regard an objective question as requiring merely a token type of answer, without necessarily really dealing thoroughly with what has actually been asked. This makes the art of thorough communication with them as being quite a laborious and difficult fight.

Thats not good. I'm in the process of putting about 30K into them since the Cahoot account rate dropped. I've sent them a question about transfers over 10K. The response was positive, they are planning to offer a facility to be able to do this soon. I would give you the exact details but I can't log into my ICICI account to retrieve the message. This must be the 4th time I've tried to log in on an evening and I can't get on it. It just says host not available, please try after some time. Whoever heard of a bank whose internet banking facility was down so much?? Its worrying.