Ulster Bank E-Savings plus - withdrawals

scottyh56

The main savings pages says:

"The highest rate possible is with Ulster Bank's e-Savings Plus account, if you've £10,000 to £100,000 to save. It pays 3.46%, including a 0.5% bonus lasting six months.
However, if you withdraw money from the account in the first six months, you only earn 0.5% interest for that calendar month."

It's implied that you are OK if you withdraw on 1st of month.

The info on the bank's site says "If you make a withdrawal, you will not earn any interest for that month". No mention of calendar month.

Before I transfer a large wedge to this account can anyone confirm best from experience!) how it works...

Thanks

Scott

scottyh56

I've been on the phone to them for half an hour & having spoken to 3 people I THINK I have the answer.......

Example:

Invest £50,000 on 1 March. Receive statements monthly on 11th of month.

If any amount is withdrawn in any month then interest is lost on the whole balance of £50,000 for that month. eg withdraw £5 lose interest on £50,000! So this is an account to put a lump sum into and take it all out at one time.

Interest is added each month on statement date. I was told specifically that interest once added is paid for good.

So if I withdraw £50,000 on 10th July I only earn interest for March, April, May & June. If I withdraw £50,000 on 12th July I earn a whole extra month's interest.

(The 0.5% bonus confuses things a little but that's not really material).

SO THIS IS A GREAT RATE IF YOU PUT IN AND PULL OUT A LARGE LUMP SUM IN ONE GO AND CHOOSE THE RIGHT DATE IN THE MONTH TO MAKE A WITHDRAWAL.

IMPORTANT: As I told the person at the bank, the only person who really knows how this works is the person who programmed the computer. And that's not me.

Scott

G_M

As implies by Scotty above, I suspect not even the staff at Ulster really understand how this works, so it's hard to know how to get the best out of the account.
Personally I've avoided it for that reason.

But if you a) plan to leave cash untouched for 6 months, b) withdraw only by closing the account and c) (the tricky one!) time it right, then you can exploit the great interest rate!!

samizdat

G_M wrote: »

As implies by Scotty above, I suspect not even the staff at Ulster really understand how this works, so it's hard to know how to get the best out of the account.
Personally I've avoided it for that reason.

But if you a) plan to leave cash untouched for 6 months, b) withdraw only by closing the account and c) (the tricky one!) time it right, then you can exploit the great interest rate!!

Actually, I think the account is much simpler than this, although I agree that the Terms & Conditions are not written very clearly.

I agree with scottyh56's analysis, which I will re-state in the hope that at least some people will thereby understand things better.

The key point, as scottyh56 says, is that interest is paid monthly on this account and, once paid, cannot be taken back from you.

Therefore, if you ensure that any withdrawal occurs on the day after you have been credited with interest for a given month, and you only ever make a withdrawal by withdrawing the entire balance of your account, including interest paid the day before, then you will not lose any interest by making such a withdrawal.

I have confirmed this over the telephone with Ulster Bank and, logically, it is hard to see how else the account could operate because, if you withdraw everything including accrued interest, how are they going to penalise you?

You do not have to close your account if you withdraw everything. However, it would be wise to wait a month before depositing anything into it again because otherwise, you will lose interest on that deposit up until the next monthly statement date.

KingL

Just a point of logistics on making the withdrawal:

If you want to establish a link to your (3rd party) bank account so that it is sitting there ready-to-use when you want to make a withdrawal, you can add your external account as a payee in your Ulster Bank Savings account. But the only way to do that is to go to the lengths of ordering a card reader (and card!) and setting up the payee using the online account.

Alternatively, you can set up a onetime manual payment/withdrawal by telephoning their servicedesk and giving them a/your payee account details over the phone.

If you subsequently want to make another withdrawal, this will require another phonecall and another onetime manual payment (i.e. making the first payment doesn't establish the payee in your payee list).


It's not the end of the world, but just to note that unless you want to go to the lengths of ordering a card and card-reader, the only thing that you will really be doing online with this account is looking at statements.

.

silentscream999

hmmmm.....

luvpump

G_M wrote: »

As implies by Scotty above, I suspect not even the staff at Ulster really understand how this works, so it's hard to know how to get the best out of the account.
Personally I've avoided it for that reason.

But if you a) plan to leave cash untouched for 6 months, b) withdraw only by closing the account and c) (the tricky one!) time it right, then you can exploit the great interest rate!!

View it as a 6 month Bond, not an instant access account, that's how i am approaching it anyway .

m5rcc

Coincedently, can one withdraw cash in person at a Natwest/RBS branch in the UK?

KingL

Have y'all got out of this yet? I think the 6 month bonus runs out next month.

Anyway I just finished getting out. Not as painful as I was expecting.

Wait until you have just received an interest payment, then phone them up and ask to transfer everything out. You can only withdraw £10k a day, so they will stage it over as many days as it takes. You only have to make the one phone call.

BACs transfer - 3 days for each £10k.

scottyh56

Thanks for the update. Rate is currently 2.71% which is not too bad if like me you've not been closely watching this, but there is better out there.