Icici

Apreciar

Having a substantial sum on deposit in ING (Seven Figure) I decided to transfer this to Bradford and Bingley and ICICI, this was after seeing they were the top paying clean accounts.
I applied to both the above banks on the same day, both notified me I was registred on the same day and the initial deposits were taken on the same day ( £1000 to B&B and £1 ICICI).
I have today received my ICICI password and it has worked first time without problems, the B&B password has not yet arrived.
After all this preamble, my question; ICICI take quite a bit of stick on this board for efficiency etc, because of this I was just going to deposit the minimum safe limit with them -£35K - and put the rest with B&B. However, I am now wondering what views are regarding investing a much larger chunk. My personal opinion, so far, is very positive and feel that they may be getting a bad press. Any comments would be appreciated.

masonic

There is an issue with ICICI and transferring large sums of money out that you should be aware of - I think you are limited to 4 x £10,000 transfers at any one time, although they seem to provide a CHAPS service for larger amounts at their discretion. Other than that, if you have tested the transfer mechanisms on your account (small transfers in and out) and everything is working properly, I don't see any real problem with investing a large sum with ICICI if you are happy to do so elsewhere. I think ICICI has quite rightly suffered a bad press for some quite spectacular teething problems, but it seems things have improved substantially since then (from my own experience what others have prosted here).

Graham03

As I mentioned on another thread, I applied for an ICICI HI-SAVE account on 28 April. It's now 11 June and I still don't have a password, despite numerous e-mails and snail mails going to and fro. Clearly it works for some people, but not for all of us. If I can get a Birmingham Midshires account set up (which I didn't start trying to do until 28 May) I shall put all my savings in there and I shall have to 'write off' the £1 I sent to ICICI because I can't get it out again. I would advise people against ICICI entirely, based on my experiences to date.

anticlaus105

I have had the ICICI account from the start and had no end of problems. They are still suffering "teething probs" eg wrong tax certificates sent out and failing to transfer funds out of the account properly as requested (and having them disappear for couple weeks with no explanation why given) to name 2 v recent probs I have had and I hardly ever use the account.

I wouldn't call these teething problems tho. They are pretty fundamental issues when running a bank account.

meanmachine_2

The OP might be better off transferring their cash back to the ING and snaffling their 6% bonus (valid till August).

Paul_Herring

meanmachine wrote:

The OP might be better off transferring their cash back to the ING and snaffling their 6% bonus (valid till August).

If they've left it this late, they are most certainly not better off transferring it. See thread: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=2173804

Assumptions:
o they transferred today,
o total of 6 days lost interest both ways
o basic rate tax payers
o compounding left out for simplicity

...they would gain a princely sum of £142.46 per million pounds transferred by moving it into ING from ICICI for the period of their promotion. Put another way, this sum is 2.5% of the interest that would be received if left in ICICI

This also assumes that the 'seven figure sum' departed from the ING account before this promotion started and is thus eligable for the increased rate.

In reply to the OP:

I am now wondering what views are regarding investing a much larger chunk. My personal opinion, so far, is very positive and feel that they may be getting a bad press. Any comments would be appreciated.

People rarely comment on mediocre institutions when they're doing things right. You're more likely to hear about the bad things. After a rocky start with them myself, I have no difficulty in reccomending them (with the provisio that the initial month may be a bit difficult) - I have all my cash savings in their account.

Lowtrawler

I agree with masonic. For information on limits for transfers out see this thread:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=174384

EagerLearner

I also opened ICICI and B&Bingley ISA at around the same time - ICICI opened far quicker and have had better contact believe it or not!

Online transfers with ICICI have been handled well and efficiently.

No complaints to date although I am STILL waiting to hear from B&BIngley...

EagerLearner

CheapSkate_4

There are a couple of ways in which ICICI is the most annoying online bank ever:

1. They rarely send out tax certificates, either by email or post
2. If you ring up to find out how much interest you paid in a tax year, they charge you £5 to tell you
3. If you don't log into your account for 90 days, they disable it
4. You can't transfer more than £10k out in a given day
5. Their systems are often down for routine maintenance when you want to talk to them

I'm sure there are other problems. I stopped keeping my savings there years ago. Unfortunately, my wife didn't, and now it's tax time. And ICICI are going to hold up doing our tax return.

bbl_2

Talk about blast from the past this thread is over three years old! lol

Just_landed

They rarely send out tax certificates, either by email or post >>>

Have you seen when you log into your A/C, you can download your Tax cert mind you not tried it yet.;)