Have banks & building societies raised their savings rates?

realaledrinker

YorkshireBoy wrote:

A mixed response from YBS.

Their 'Internet Saver' will see a 0.15% increase to 4.85% "before 31st August 2006".

The e-ISA remains at 4.90%.

YB - have you had this positively confirmed as their only reaction to the base rate increase. I ask because I saw an item on the news feed at work (I work for a financial institution) about three weeks ago mentioning the rise in YBSs e-savings accout -i.e. well before the BoE rise. I am hoping therefore that they have still to announce their increased rates. They will have to move their ISA or it will become uncompetitive.

YorkshireBoy

realaledrinker wrote:

YB - have you had this positively confirmed as their only reaction to the base rate increase.

No, I just stumbled on it when checking some mortgage info on their website (I'm switching product at the end of next month to their "fee assist BOE+0.75%" offset and was looking for some info on the offset savings account).

They did tell me today though, that they had no plans to increase their mortgage SVR. Normally, I'd say yeah, right :rolleyes: - but how many people are on SVR these days? It can't be many.

I am hoping therefore that they have still to announce their increased rates.

That would make it a very attractive account - if, indeed, they pass on the full 0.25%.

They will have to move their ISA or it will become uncompetitive.

I suppose that depends what the competition do - there haven't been many announcements yet (unless I've missed them).

ManAtHome

Good guys so far seem to be NS&I (ISA), Post Office (Instant Savings) and M&S (ISA).

Bad guys are all the rest who were falling over themsleves to reduce rates despite the BoE rates unchanged and longer-term rates going up.

I'd go with anyone who's increasing rates quickly - nothing like an outflow of cash to make the other to$$ers increase their rates..

alared

Most will move on 1st Sept but don`t expect the full .25% from most of them.

edda

Re: YBS internet saver

The rate increase to 4.85% was announced weeks before the base rate change.

In fact, it's been in some best buy tables for a while at this rate - with a note saying this was effective from 1at Aug. So, when it didn''t happen, I rang them up to find out why.

The explanantion was that they intended to raise it by the end of August - crafty eh? Especially as this would have made it exactly the same rate as the B&B.

Was told that the increase would probably be on 28th Aug - a year from their last rate change.

Looks like there will be 2 changes by the YBS then - else my oney goes to another provider!

Greycrow

ManAtHome wrote:

Good guys so far seem to be NS&I (ISA), Post Office (Instant Savings) and M&S (ISA).

Bad guys are all the rest who were falling over themsleves to reduce rates despite the BoE rates unchanged and longer-term rates going up.

I'd go with anyone who's increasing rates quickly - nothing like an outflow of cash to make the other to$$ers increase their rates..

I'll go with that.
Banks thrive on inertia.

Moggles_2

Someone at Cahoot has a sense of humour. The strap-line on their home page reads:

"After extensive research, banks have discovered that savers are really interested in great rates"

"Blimey"

So why don't they get on with it and raise their rates?

Daft_Monkey

Nice ploy from the banks, they all dropped their rates in anticipation of a BoE base rate increase, some for even more than 0.5% and now that the BoE base rate has gone up, they might give us something between 0.0% and 0.25%. I feel so grateful, not!
Feels like the tricks shops used to do (and still do) just before the sales; increasing their prices to convince us we are getting a bargain.

pyro_4

On the 3rd August I got an email about my Alliance & Leicester Online Saver Account saying that the interest rate had dropped from 4.5% to 4.4% with effect from the 2nd August 2006.

It also stated that the current Bank of England Base Rate is 4.75% (effective from 3rd August 2006).

I sent an email that day to the Customer Services Manager who sent the email asking for an explanation for the reduction, but I haven't had a response yet.

Steve_xx

pyro wrote:

On the 3rd August I got an email about my Alliance & Leicester Online Saver Account saying that the interest rate had dropped from 4.5% to 4.4% with effect from the 2nd August 2006.

It also stated that the current Bank of England Base Rate is 4.75% (effective from 3rd August 2006).

I sent an email that day to the Customer Services Manager who sent the email asking for an explanation for the reduction, but I haven't had a response yet.

No, and I doubt that you will get a response from A&L. They say that they cannot discuss details of your account in an email. So rather than writing to you and telling you that, they just ignore you. So you might find that you have to phone their customer services on their 0845 number.