What'll happen to top paying variable ISA's - and...

savetilibleed

I need now to transfer my YBS e-ISA as it is about to drop, to something like the NatWest one at 3.51% variable. Bit of a pain having to open another account before I can do that though. Also what stops them dropping the rate like a stone after not very long to equal any other variable rate ISA.

I'm a little concerned about locking up £48000 for a year in say a Lloyds FRISA at 3.2% when after the year it reverts to whatever their standard variable rate will be then. Upside is I can open one in minutes online as I bank with Lloyds online already.

Does anyone know how long Lloyds (or NatWest for that matter) take to complete transfers? I'm concerned about delay at this busy time and loss of interest during the transfer. It ought only to be the time between the cheques from the source BS being issued and sent and the new place receiving them. But from experience last year with a transfer from Abbey (who cocked up the information supplied to YBS twice) resulted in a month between the letters from Abbey and YBS crediting my account. I was compensated somehow, but have no idea how it was calculated.

alastair_h

savetilibleed wrote: »

I need now to transfer my YBS e-ISA as it is about to drop, to something like the NatWest one at 3.51% variable. Bit of a pain having to open another account before I can do that though. Also what stops them dropping the rate like a stone after not very long to equal any other variable rate ISA.

Nothing that's why it called a variable rate, only thing you could do is fix the rate (you can still get around 3% for a 1 year fixed rate ISA).

savetilibleed wrote: »

I'm a little concerned about locking up £48000 for a year in say a Lloyds FRISA at 3.2% when after the year it reverts to whatever their standard variable rate will be then. Upside is I can open one in minutes online as I bank with Lloyds online already.

Then on completion of ISA term, transfer it again to a better rate or go for another FRISA.

savetilibleed wrote: »

Does anyone know how long Lloyds (or NatWest for that matter) take to complete transfers? I'm concerned about delay at this busy time and loss of interest during the transfer. It ought only to be the time between the cheques from the source BS being issued and sent and the new place receiving them. But from experience last year with a transfer from Abbey (who cocked up the information supplied to YBS twice) resulted in a month between the letters from Abbey and YBS crediting my account. I was compensated somehow, but have no idea how it was calculated.

They have up to 30 days to complete a transfer (and this can be a busy time of year), from my own experience most take around 2 weeks, best ever was 10 days'ish and worst Natwest around 4 weeks interest was backdated.

The compensation was probably calculated as lost interest during the time they were messing things up.