Instant Access Savings Accounts Article Discussion Area

Eck

Wouldn't touch Ice with a bargepole.

MarkyMarkD

cwillnic wrote:

We all like a baragin and IceSave appeared to be offering a market leading interest rate to savers.

Market leading just for the period that they'd announced a rate rise whilst others (A&L) had not, unless you require the instant access partial withdrawals without penalty that they offer.

thor

cwillnic wrote:

If you want a good interest rate try ING internet acces account - beats IceSave and they have a customer service department that actually answers the telephone!

ING??? Maybe worth saving with them 2 or 3 years ago but now they are quite rightly a laughing stock. The only account they have that beats Icesave is the 6.0% one but that is fixed and only for only 6 months. I would not waste my time with a bank which promises 'one great rate' for all and then throws in every trick in the book to get our money.

AMADEUS_3

Martin

Your recent Email mentioned that HSBC was offering an Online Saver Account at 5.75% from £1. If you read the Terms and Conditions particularly paragraphs 5.5, 6, 6.1 & 6.2 you will see that if you make a payment or close the Account you will lose one months interest!

Please correct me if I am wrong but say for example I put £1000.00 in this account for a year, one would expect a return of £1570.50.

But if you are going to lose one complete months' worth of interest on withdrawal/closure of the account that is only 11 months worth of interest, which to my calculations equates to only 5.17% over the period.

5.75% divided by 12 = 0.47% per month

11 months x 0.47% = 5.17% !!!!!

koru

MarkyMarkD wrote:

Koru is NOT right. Webwiz was almost right - 5.5% IS the rate of interest you would have earned if you had invested a year ago, except that the 5.5% is a three year investment rate.

If someone had invested 3 years ago, they would NOT have got the compounded equivalent of 5.5% AER because the RPI hasn't been 4.4% for each of those three years (just the last one).

The reason koru is wrong is that they do NOT "vary the interest rate on a monthly basis". They index-link the capital value of the invested amount, and ALSO add 1.1% interest per annum.

And even if they did vary the interest rate on a monthly basis, 4.4% is the compounded equivalent of the RPI increases for each of the months in the past year, so the same effect would be achieved if they did so.

Apologies. I agree. This month the index fell, which reduced the interest rate on the certificates, but only a little. If what I said was right, the current rate on the certificates would be negative.

However, I believe the most important point is correct, which is that the rate you will earn if you invest now will only be the rate trumpeted by National Savings if inflation stays as high as it is right now. So whether this is a good investment depends on whether you think we have just moved into a period of long-term higher inflation than the norms over the last decade or more.

nordberg

AMADEUS wrote:

Please correct me if I am wrong but say for example I put £1000.00 in this account for a year, one would expect a return of £1570.50.

Woohoo!! Where can I sign up for this account?

I think your decimal place may have slipped slightly......

MarkyMarkD

AMADEUS wrote:

Martin

Your recent Email mentioned that HSBC was offering an Online Saver Account at 5.75% from £1. If you read the Terms and Conditions particularly paragraphs 5.5, 6, 6.1 & 6.2 you will see that if you make a payment or close the Account you will lose one months interest!

Please correct me if I am wrong but say for example I put £1000.00 in this account for a year, one would expect a return of £1570.50.

But if you are going to lose one complete months' worth of interest on withdrawal/closure of the account that is only 11 months worth of interest, which to my calculations equates to only 5.17% over the period.

5.75% divided by 12 = 0.47% per month

11 months x 0.47% = 5.17% !!!!!

You probably won't get anywhere addressing posts to Martin himself - better to just address the forum readership as a whole.

If you open the account on 01/01/07 and close it on 01/01/08, you will lose precisely no days' interest and hence you will get the 12 months' interest at the 5.75% quoted rate.

As with all accounts with this "no interest in the monthly of closure/withdrawal", you only lose out if you make partial withdrawals or make full withdrawals on a day other than the first day in a month.

You do NOT lose "one month's interest". You don't earn any interest in the month of withdrawal or closure, which is something completely different.

DComedian

I'm rather mystified by Martin's advice in this week's e-mail.

The new ING Direct Web Saver Account is offering customers 5.65% AER, and you can "move your money whenever you like - no penalties or charges" to quote their website. It is therefore very competitive for an instant access account, only bettered by IceSave's 5.70%.

http://www.ingdirect.co.uk/savings/faqs/

Admittedly this offer might only be open to their existing customers.

Am I missing something here?

Ian_K_3

ING now offers 5.65% if you operate internet only (no phone contact). Given their site is so easy to use this doesn't seem a disadvantage.

hazelb1944

Hi all
Just noticed that Martin has said on todays newletter to Ditch ING. Well I have just started an additional account with them called "Web Saver Account" which you can open if you already have their saver account. You just transfer money to the new web saver and it pays 5.65%. It is instant access. Just thought you might like to know this, as I dont know if it has already been posted.