Lambeth Building Society

Philippa769

Does anyone have any experience/knowledge of the Lambeth Building Society? I'm trying to find a safe place to store the proceeds of the sale of my house, and they are offering 4.96%/5.01% in a branch based, instant access account called PremierSave ( http://www.lambeth.co.uk ). Can anyone see any drawbacks?

cattie

I saved with them for many years as once upon a time their rates were always very competitive. However their rates started dropping & ceased to be competitive so I closed my accounts & moved my cash to institutions offering better returns.

Really you should be looking at their track record regarding interest rates. Sometimes banks & building societies offer a good initial rate, then a few months later it drops & ceases to be competitive. If you don't plan on having your money on deposit for very long then this won't be too much of a bother to you.

Have you considered the Alliance & Leicester online saver account? The interest rate at the moment is 5.15% and it has been a pretty decent rate for a while now.

I'm sure some very knowledgeable folk will be by soon to give you some more advice as to other possible choices.

steady__eddie

I have more or less the same response as cattie, 15 months ago I transferred an I.S.A. to them at 5.65 %. Now it's 4.55% which is easily beatable. They all do it to attract funds.
I suppose it may depend upon how long you want to store your funds, if you want to transfer at a later date, you'll lose 3 or 4 days interest while the cheque clears or the cost of electronic transfer.

Cook_County

If you are storing a lot of money then you will be very exposed if they go bust because the UKs investor protection limits are now so low. The risk is identical with all banks and building societies so you can spread the risk by investing in several banks, assume the event is unlikely, or just choose a bank or building society with a very large capitalisation.

Fossil_2

Know some people who had accounts with them from the late 80s.. haven't gone bust yet! cattie is right about their recent not so good interest rates

Steve_xx

cattie wrote:

I saved with them for many years as once upon a time their rates were always very competitive. However their rates started dropping & ceased to be competitive so I closed my accounts & moved my cash to institutions offering better returns.

Really you should be looking at their track record regarding interest rates. Sometimes banks & building societies offer a good initial rate, then a few months later it drops & ceases to be competitive. If you don't plan on having your money on deposit for very long then this won't be too much of a bother to you.

Have you considered the Alliance & Leicester online saver account? The interest rate at the moment is 5.15% and it has been a pretty decent rate for a while now.

I'm sure some very knowledgeable folk will be by soon to give you some more advice as to other possible choices.

The A&L account isn't as good as it may appear. See the detail below:

Online Saver Issue 2 now includes a 0.90% bonus
Earn a great rate of interest – 5.15% p.a. gross (variable),
4.67% AER includes bonus of 0.90% until 30.06.06
Take advantage of our 0.90% limited offer bonus

The best rate currently available is from Indian Bank ICICI at 5.15%. Here's a link:

http://www.icicibank.co.uk/index.html