% rise announcements - online savings accounts

ED

Abbey announce impending new rates for eSaver a/c (effective Sept 1+) :

£1+ 4.60% (+ 0.50% for 1st 6 months of opening the a/c)
£50,000+ 4.70% (ditto)
100,000+ 4.80% (ditto)
200,000+ 4.90% (ditto)

It's not enough for those of us who already hold the a/c (so nil introductory bonus), but at least they have passed on the full 0.25% Base Rate rise. Praise due, also, for announcing it online now rather than keep customers wondering for 3 weeks.

Plenty of more competitive instant access, online a/c's offering a higher rate than the current 4.35% from Abbey (prior to September 1st) - e.g. :

5.40% Birmingham Midshires
5.30% Leeds & Holbeck BS [but log-in malfunctions seem rife]
5.10% Alliance & Leicester [but 24hrs to transfer to/from A&L cheque a/c]
4.85% Norwich & Peterborough BS [excellent service, IMHO]
4.70% Halifax plc [very poor customer support via emailing]
4.60% Coventry BS [restrictions now imposed re credits from more than 1 external a/c]

Anyone recommend others - or had profound experienes with any of these?

DiggingOut

Welcome back, ED, haven't seen you in a while....

System

Ed talks my sort of language. Ok i might not understand most of it, but i am trying. ::)

ED

DiggingOut – glad to find time, again, especially in this exciting period when savings a/c rates are becoming more competitive. :-)

Judi – in various threads, I've seen you making good progress. :-) I'm still learning, too. For several years I've had regular, monthly savings a/c's with several building soc's + banks – like members of the Martin Lewis Appreciation Society, I'm aware most of these pay higher interest than instant access online a/c's. But it seems the margin is narrowing. I wonder why this is…? (Eg. Leeds & Holbeck's online a/c pays 5.30%, whilst its regular, monthly savings a/c will be just 0.25% above this @ 5.55% effective Aug 21st.)

Incidentally, my above list of online, instant access a/c's excludes Cahoot because I've found their log-in facility extremely user-UNfriendly. Many posts on MSE indicate problems are rife at Cahoot. Hard to believe it's a sister business of Abbey. My experience of the Abbey site is that it is the best for online banking and sweeping funds between online and cheque a/c's. Just disappointing their online rate is so uncompetative.

klondyke

Don't be nasty to Cahoot - we have no problem stashing/stoozing cash in thir nice savings account. Just occasioally get the big red screen, but try a few minutes later and usually ok.

System

Judi – in various threads, I've seen you making good progress. :-)

Thankyou kind Sir!!!! I have to take things in bite sized chunks though. Mull things over in my head, make sense of them before i take any action. Then i worry about a week as to whether i have done the right thing. ;D

Kazza242

I know this is not an online savings account, but...

Derbyshire Building Society will increase their regular savings account interest rate to 5.85% from September 1st ;D. A 0.2% increase from the Derbyshire this time, but still a very attractive rate.

ED

4.85% for online a/c of Coventry Bdg Soc effective Sept 1st. (Full quarter percent rise, this time.)

Or get 1% more via regular, monthly savings with Derbyshire Bdg Soc (nice one, Kazza 242) - ideal for funds unlikely to need withdrawing more than once a year.