where is the best place to save £5000 for 1 year (which I wont be touching) ?

freddysmith

Thats a very good point about having your interest gross (using form R85),
If you are under your personal tax allowance.
I agree that making your money work harder for you is not being greedy.
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Darth_Calculus

I concur, regarding R85 form, and gross interest. If your yearly earnings are below £6,035, then you can request that your interest is paid before the deduction of tax. If you are planning on spending this money shortly after you are earning a living wage, then you would not reap the benefits of an ISA, so going for the best gross rate would be the thing to look for.

ICICI have signed up to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which means that if they went under, you'd get all your money back, up to a £35k limit, so you dont need to worry about losing your capital (although I dont know how this works for accrued interest, I guess you'd probably lose this.)

If things go right, and your money gets deposited to your bond correctly, your interest is calculated correctly, etc, then you are right, you wont need to speak to a representative of ICICI. It is when things go wrong, and you need help that poor customer service can really add insult to injury.

I seem to remember when ICICI started offering UK savings accounts, which must be getting on for three years ago now, there were teething problems, and although there are still some issues, I think you could have issues with any providers, as you only have to speak to the 'wrong' member of staff, or just be the unlucky a/c number where things go wrong.

More recently, I recall one board member (I think it was on this forum) who had an ICICI bond, and they took the deposit amount twice, which caused the poster to incure bank charges. Of course, there are probably 1000's of people who have no issues with them, you just rarely hear about it.

I too am thinking of opening an ICICI account, as I have a maturing Nationwide bond, and their rates only seem to start with 6's at the moment. :mad:

DC

neil324

Darth_Calculus wrote: »

I concur, regarding R85 form, and gross interest. If your yearly earnings are below £6,035, then you can request that your interest is paid before the deduction of tax. If you are planning on spending this money shortly after you are earning a living wage, then you would not reap the benefits of an ISA, so going for the best gross rate would be the thing to look for.

ICICI have signed up to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which means that if they went under, you'd get all your money back, up to a £35k limit, so you dont need to worry about losing your capital (although I dont know how this works for accrued interest, I guess you'd probably lose this.)

If things go right, and your money gets deposited to your bond correctly, your interest is calculated correctly, etc, then you are right, you wont need to speak to a representative of ICICI. It is when things go wrong, and you need help that poor customer service can really add insult to injury.

I seem to remember when ICICI started offering UK savings accounts, which must be getting on for three years ago now, there were teething problems, and although there are still some issues, I think you could have issues with any providers, as you only have to speak to the 'wrong' member of staff, or just be the unlucky a/c number where things go wrong.

More recently, I recall one board member (I think it was on this forum) who had an ICICI bond, and they took the deposit amount twice, which caused the poster to incure bank charges. Of course, there are probably 1000's of people who have no issues with them, you just rarely hear about it.

I too am thinking of opening an ICICI account, as I have a maturing Nationwide bond, and their rates only seem to start with 6's at the moment. :mad:

DC

I agree about the last statement. Seems to me they have a lot of bonds maturing now and they have lowered their rates to much and are hoping for loyalty. Their 2 year pays 6.25%:mad: . Had 100k with them, now being split up and transfered away from them over the coming month. Shame really because they are very safe in terms of going under and i would have stayed with them if their rates was a little closer to the compition but they have made the decision for me.

Paul_Herring

However, £200 is hardly anything.

While not the best you can get, it's not entirely unreasonable; it equates to 5% gross.

collingwood21

ICESAVE also have fixed rate bonds at 7%+ interest, ranging from 6 months to 3 years.

dag_2

• Wasnt there a problem with the ICICI bank a while ago?
  
  
• Should I be too concerned about customer service? Because Im not going to do anything. My money is just going to sit there for one year, then afterwards I will be taking it out...

With ICICI, you have to open a Hi-SAVE no-notice savings account before you can apply for the bond - but you only need £1 to open the Hi-SAVE account. Once the account is open, you can then fill in the on-line form to apply for the bond, which you pay for using funds from the Hi-SAVE account.

My understanding is that as long as you don't tick the box to say automatically renew at the end, then, once the bond expires, the funds and interest are then credited back to your Hi-SAVE account. It's then up to you to schedule a transaction on your Hi-SAVE account to move the money back to your current account.

As for customer service, it can be a bit frustrating waiting for the Hi-SAVE account to open in the first place, but once it's up and running, it's fine. A word of advice, though; when making deposits, it's better to do it as a payment using your own current account's bill-payment facility. Instructing ICICI to collect the deposit by direct debit is likely to take longer. But withdrawals are okay. Once the account is open and you've got the necessary passwords to operate the internet banking interface, you should allow three working days for deposits and withdrawals.

The interface might not seem that intuitive at first, but all the options are there as long as you go looking for them.