Interest Rate Rise (merged)

ashcarrot

Indeed, But then it encourages you just to save. And as I'm saving up for a house I don't forsee any withdrawals any time soon

Moggles_2

It's a variable rate, which First Direct could decide to slice at any time.

Same applies to ICICI's HiSAVE of course, but at least you can vote with your feet without suffering a loss of interest!

masonic

Moggles wrote:

It's a variable rate, which First Direct could decide to slice at any time.

Same applies to ICICI's HiSAVE of course, but at least you can vote with your feet without suffering a loss of interest!

You wouldn't really suffer a loss of interest with FD if you closed the account at the beginning of the month. However, the inconvenience of not having easy access is hardly worth even considering unless this account becomes the best around.

Moggles_2

... the inconvenience of not having easy access is hardly worth even considering unless this account becomes the best around.

Agree totally.

Recently, FD decided to cut the rate paid on this account by 0.25%, even though the BoE base rate remained unchanged.

If memory serves, this was around mid-April and followed a hefty campaign advertising the previous 5% rate. Imagine how you would feel if you had just opened an account!

It's worth noting too that ICICI undertakes to pay at least 0.25% more than the BoE base rate on its HiSAVE a/c, until the end of December 2007. IMO, that's a valuable guarantee!

thor

A few months ago I posted the question about how the banks&building societies would react to an increase in base rates given that so many of them were happy to make cuts in saving rates even when the boe rate had not changed. I believed then that most would only increase by 0.15 or 0.20%. I still think that this will happen, in fact I can certainly see that some may not even botther increasing at all. They'll claim that they are reviewing rates and months after increasing loans & mortgages by the full whack will hope that everyone has forgotten that there was a boe rate rise at all for savers. Certainly I expect one of the worst offenders ING to act miserly again. Can anyone remember what the boe v ING saving rate differential was when they launched compared to what it is now? I can only see this getting worse.

martyn4764

But at least there are those banks (around 10 or so, there's a thread about it further down) with base rate guarantees... eg within 14 days, Egg will be offering 4.75 and within 30 days, Cahoot will be on 4.75 or above... and in turn it's increases from those providers which pushes the others to compete.

martyn4764

Cahoot have just confirmed that the rate will increase on 30th August. (They didn't state 4.75 or a shade over).

This was, incidentally, in response to an email in which I asked whether the increase will be back-dated to last Thursday... am I the only person to think that they are breaking their guarantee during the intervening 30 days or so?