Update! Santander First Home Saver Account: 5% on up to 50k savings (up to 35 only)

beefturnmail

well, I received my quarterly statement yesterday, with the interest payment on it and it was about £50 lower than I calculated it to be. I gave them a call and they'd only paid 0.1% interest for two months because of the way the payment dates fell meant that there were two periods with no payment for more than 31 days, which their systems recognised as an 'underfunded month'. The customer services guy recognised that it was santander's mistake and they could see I funded the account each month, so the interest would be corrected.

Difficult to spot though, so my advice is to check the interest carefully!

**woody123**

rb10 wrote: »

I was not given a validation checklist either.

If they haven't given me one, then obviously I can't provide it when I close the account.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Thanks very much for the reply. At least it puts my mind at ease now.

amictus

I am expecting to receive my first annual interest payment this month. Could someone who has already had their account for more than a year let me know whether the monthly interest calculations are detailed, or whether just the total sum for the entire year is stated.

The reason I ask is that at the end of one of the months I made a £5,000 deposit and would like to know exactly how this affected interest calculations. As far as I'm aware, as interest is calculated daily, it will only incur the low rate penalty for the remainder of that calendar month. However, I have not yet been able to confirm this. So, the more detail given on the annual statement, the easier it will be for me to check against my own calculations.

Thanks!

beefturnmail

hi owains. Mine was just one figure which was the annual interest. I checked it carefully by doing the interest calculation myself from scratch and Santander had miscalculated it! (see my previous post). When I rang them up they were able to tell me which months they had (incorrectly) applied the lower interest rate.

amictus

beefturnmail wrote: »

hi owains. Mine was just one figure which was the annual interest. I checked it carefully by doing the interest calculation myself from scratch and Santander had miscalculated it! (see my previous post). When I rang them up they were able to tell me which months they had (incorrectly) applied the lower interest rate.

Yeah I saw your post, which is what prompted me to ask about how interest was detailed. From what you said previously, it looks as though an under or over paid month results in the low interest rate applied to the entire calendar month, rather than just the remaining days as I had hoped. Have I got this right? Should I expect to have the low interest rate for the entire month in which I overpaid?

rb10

owains wrote: »

Yeah I saw your post, which is what prompted me to ask about how interest was detailed. From what you said previously, it looks as though an under or over paid month results in the low interest rate applied to the entire calendar month, rather than just the remaining days as I had hoped. Have I got this right? Should I expect to have the low interest rate for the entire month in which I overpaid?

Yes, that is what the T&Cs state will happen.

If you pay in over £300 in any month, you will receive a lower rate of interest for that whole calendar month.

beefturnmail

in the months which Santander's 'system' regarded I had underpaid (August and January), 0.1% was applied for the whole of that calandar month. Not sure about overpayments as I had none, though in theory their system should have picked me up as 'overpaying' in September and February as well...

amictus

rb10 wrote: »

Yes, that is what the T&Cs state will happen.

If you pay in over £300 in any month, you will receive a lower rate of interest for that whole calendar month.

beefturnmail wrote: »

in the months which Santander's 'system' regarded I had underpaid (August and January), 0.1% was applied for the whole of that calandar month. Not sure about overpayments as I had none, though in theory their system should have picked me up as 'overpaying' in September and February as well...

Well I would say that confirms it. I'll take this into consideration when I do my own interest calculations. Thanks for responding.

transparent_opacity

An update on this one for account holders. It appears that the complete lack of product knowledge on Santander's part regarding First Home Saver's (as I experience when opening the account) played in my favour today.

I walked into the Preston branch, asked to withdraw all but £1 from the account, and they handed over a cheque! No account closure, no interview with the mortgage advisor. The cashier was unsure when I mentioned that I thought I had to close the account to withdraw (the queue for the advisor was long, so I only happened to try the desk by luck) but she said she'd give it a go, and the system let her process the withdrawal. Brilliant!

AndyC85

Went to my local branch at lunchtime today to try and open one of these. The manager didn't seem to know much about the product and seemed to think i would need a meeting with a mortgage advisor to open the account, which they would have to arrange (as it's a small branch that doesn't usually have mortgage advisors there). They took my number and said they would make some enquiries and phone me back, they haven't yet.

What should I expect on opening an account, and should I just go to a bigger branch where they might have a bit more of a clue?