Sad day at Yorkshire BS

baby_boomer · 7 October 2017 at 5:53PM

Yorkshire BS offered the best account in the world. A regular saver offering a 3.5% annual bonus. Originally this was in addition to a 0.25% annual interest rate, recently cut to 0.05%. Other societies simply withdrew similar accounts when interest rate plummeted to 0.25% but YBS stuck to their commitment (unlike, for instance, Scottish BS which withdrew a similar 4% regular saver long ago). It is a shame that they have now withdrawn this account from 14 December 2017. Initially your savings will get 1.5% pa instead, but afte 12 months they will get the Triple Access Saver rate = 0.6% currently. Quite a let down. I also inherited a joint account from a dead partner. So this change will cost me about £1,150 pa. This is the last such savings account promised by mutuals. However the Nationwide BS still retains its commitment to mortgages linked to excessively low interest rates, and so penalises all its savers and the majority of its members as a result each and every year.

EarthBoy · 7 October 2017 at 8:51PM

There's already a thread about this. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5722669

bowlhead99 · 8 October 2017 at 1:25AM

baby_boomer wrote: »

This is the last such savings account promised by mutuals. However the Nationwide BS still retains its commitment to mortgages linked to excessively low interest rates, and so penalises all its savers and the majority of its members as a result each and every year.

The Nationwide pays up to three times the base rate on its Loyalty saver (instant access with unlimited withdrawals on balances of £1+) and offers market leading interest rates (5%) on its current account product and linked regular saver.

On the mortgage side its 5-year trackers for new mortgages are at base plus ~1.4% on a 60% LTV or base plus ~1.6% at 75% LTV. So, linked to the low interest rates set by the Bank of England but not excessively low and with a fair margin for the building society to make profit.

The fact that they are 'retaining their commitment' to existing mortgages linked to base rates which you feel are excessively low, is not much of a complaint. Would you think them better if they reneged on their commitments, or turned down profitable business? They have to build their assets somehow, so they have financial strength to give their membership base a decent overall deal.

Of course, your issues with Nationwide BS are nothing to do with the subject of your thread (Yorkshire BS). They are simply competitors.

In the competition for profitable business you would not expect either of them to continue to offer deals that blew the other so far out of the water that it was unaffordable for them to sustain; and at the end of the day it's not in the customer's best interest for one of them to offer crazy high interest rates on large amounts of savings to win customers and put the other one out of business, because then the customers are left with fewer businesses to choose between.

bigadaj · 8 October 2017 at 1:32AM

It's tough for risk averse baby boomers.

Houses bought in the seventies and eighties, mortgages paid off but now worth dozens of multiples of purchase price ( note the OP is London based).

Problems would have been largely solved by using investments but that's gambling, so just moan about poor saver interest rates without seeing the other side, easier being a baby boomer than a millennial I'd suggest.

Glen_Clark · 8 October 2017 at 10:49AM

When you remember the Bank rate is 0.25%, 2 year Government Bonds yield 0.42%, the (baby boomer) retail saver is again very lucky.
Even large professional investors don't have the benefit of rates paid on retail savings accounts.

Sad day at Yorkshire BS

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free