Child's savings at Britannia

mini

I had convinced my daughter it was a good idea to put some of her birthday money in her building society account, we have kept the Britannia building society account for her to have some idea of saving money, it was quite a task to convince her not to invest in more My Little Pony's but she was convinced eventually.....

BUT They wouldn't accept her £14 in pound coins and 5 x 20 pence pieces "We don't have the facility to keep cash" very reassuring, what on earth are they doing there then?The account is called first saver and my daughter does not receive many cheques.


Yes I can write a cheque for that amount and pay it in, but that wasn't the point, i was meant to be helping my poor daughter (already deprived of additional ponies) to learn to save a bit of money for another time, to make matters worse 4 days later she is still asking about why she can't put her money in her account.


mini >:(

ED

mimi – sympathies for your daughter's disappointment when trying to deposit a handful of £1 coins at Britannia Building Society. I guess a £10 note + £5 note from Mum was needed, but not always available.

Abbey also have a policy of discouraging coin deposits, even just a small number. They told me it's OK for the biggest banks (eg Halifax) – because they receive large amounts of each denomination, & have to have the facility for business customers. But Abbey itself has to pay for coins to be taken away.

Shame £1 notes were discontinued. Perhaps someday we'll adopt Euro notes, so there will be less problem.

Meanwhile, anyone here able to propose a building soc or bank offering a children's a/c paying more than Britannia BS's 4.25%? Seems low. Usually children's a/c's pay as high as adult a/c's that have limitations (withdrawal notice, only one w/d per year, or high-ish balance) but there are plenty of adult a/c's offering up to 4.90% gross (Nottingham BS) – way more than Britannia's paltry 4.25% for children.

mimi – do you have time to surf around sites, to seek a better home for your daughter's £15 + future savings? Here's a link to best children's a/c's listing on MoneyFacts :

http://www.moneyfacts.co.uk/menus/main/menu_child.htm

Tony_H_3

Ironically you can open a child saving account with Britania BS from as little as £1.00 according to the Moneyfacts website...... May'be Britania should state their opening deposit as £5.00 / Notes only. At least this would be good customer relations.

Have you considered the post office for a savings account for your child?

mini

We kept the Britannia building society account so we weren't always taking her to different places to pay her money in and she can see it adding up in her book, I'll teach her to shop around later ;D

We keep the bulk of her money in a separate account which we don't really want her to know about, this accont was just for her to save a bit in and mum rarely walks around with money as she spends it then wonders where it has gone.

mini

Interesting you can open the account with a £1, maybe they can look after one £1 coin, I may chalenge them with that next time if I try and open another count I wonder if they'd accept cash....

Savvy_Sue

So if your daughter wanted to withdraw her savings to buy some more little ponies, would she have to accept a cheque? Can grownups not withdraw cash on demand from Britannia? Surely they must keep some cash!

We moved away from the Post Office Savings when they stopped accepting deposits of less than £5 for the very same reason: big disincentive if you couldn't pay in little amounds.

ED

Totally agree, Britannia Bdg Soc (+ Abbey) being disinclined (at least at some branches) to accept modest coin deposits is indeed a big disincentive for children to invest. Sigh, financial institutions lacking savvy…

robnye

if you where to withdraw £10 from the savings account and asked for it £1 coins or smaller, would they oblige?

ED

Good point, robnye. Presumably banks & bdg societies keep a moderate amount of coins for cash withdrawals.

Um, maybe MSE readers should purposefully ask for part of every over-the-counter withdrawal at Britannia, Abbey (& other coin-hating institutions) to be partly in coins. That would give them an incentive to actively welcome getting more coins in, so they don't have to pay for stock of them to hand out.

Quackers

Both my girls have saving with Brittania.

A couple of years ago they took in about £10 each in change. All bagged up correctly. We were told they didn't accept change. I explained that my children didn't save £10 notes they saved 'coins' in their piggy banks. Still no joy. I asked to close the accounts. They called the manager & she assured me that there was no problems and they could accept the money ??? She tucked one of her 'personal' cards into their savings books & we've had no problems since.

To be honest I should have closed the accounts but couldn't be bothered!! If it happens again we will close them!

secretdancer

Did a bit of research when opening my son's first account. The best at the time, and still one of the best is the Alliance and Leicester FirstSaver (childs account).

5.50% gross.

Fatboy_NSS

Abbey also have a policy of discouraging coin deposits, even just a small number. They told me it's OK for the biggest banks (eg Halifax) – because they receive large amounts of each denomination, & have to have the facility for business customers. But Abbey itself has to pay for coins to be taken away.

Actually Abbey doesn't have any limits on the amount of coins you can pay into a kids account. Adults can pay in 5 full bags a day, and normally more if there's space for them in the branch.