Anyone heard about NatWest/RBS new bonds .

SallySunshine

New competitive savings bonds from NatWest and RBS

10th December 2010
From Saturday 11 December 2010, a new range of savings bonds will be introduced from NatWest and RBS.
Customers can choose a one or two year fixed rate bond or three year stepped rate bond. The bonds are available to open with a minimum deposit of £5,000 and the bond term will commence on 24 January 2011.

I've just checked their website but they are still showing the rate of 3.5% on bonds starting 4th Jan.
Seems strange they would have the same bonds but at another rate starting 20 days later.

planemad

SallySunshine wrote: »

New competitive savings bonds from NatWest and RBS
.

I've just checked their website but they are still showing the rate of 3.5% on bonds starting 4th Jan.

I saw a leaflet in my local branch to the same effect on Sat.

SallySunshine

They were trying to get me to reinvest a bond that matures on 22nd Dec, but since the new bond doesn't start until 4th Jan, they kindly offered to 'keep' the funds in a holding account at the base rate until then.

Possibly scaremongering people into thinking the rate would be withdrawn but it was on average what others were offering so I'm not particularly interested, so I'll move my money out and hang on until after the New Year since things seem to be looking up slightly, especially with the 1 year bonds.

ses6jwg

wow natwest are actually becoming anywhere near competitive on savings rates once again

never thought I'd see the day.

Now maybe if Barclays, HSBC and LTSB follow suit we might be onto a winner.

rb10

ses6jwg wrote: »

wow natwest are actually becoming anywhere near competitive on savings rates once again

never thought I'd see the day.

Now maybe if Barclays, HSBC and LTSB follow suit we might be onto a winner.

... as long as they don't decide to go down the Natwest route of saying that you get 0.5% for the first x weeks, and then the account starts paying the higher rate. That makes a good product decidedly mediocre.

atypical

rb10 wrote: »

... as long as they don't decide to go down the Natwest route of saying that you get 0.5% for the first x weeks, and then the account starts paying the higher rate. That makes a good product decidedly mediocre.

"Interest will be paid at the Bank of England base rate, currently 0.50%, until the start date of your bond - 24 January 2011."

Long time to wait.

G_M

atypical wrote: »

"Interest will be paid at the Bank of England base rate, currently 0.50%, until the start date of your bond - 24 January 2011."

Long time to wait.

:rotfl: :rotfl::rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
Oh natwest - you do make me chuckle!

So tie your cash up for 2 years and get 3.5% (ignoring the small matter of the preliminary weeks where you get 0.5%)

Far better to go to the M&S 3 year bond, get the same 3.5%, but with access at any time subject to just £100 penalty. Worth paying such a small penalty for the extra flexibility.

SallySunshine

i don't particularly want to tie money up for 3 years but as you say G_M, M&S does make sense. I have ISAs with them, 3year fixed rate at 4%
However I'm trying to find out what the rate is on NatWests new bond that doesn't seem to be advertised yet.

G_M

SallySunshine wrote: »

i don't particularly want to tie money up for 3 years but as you say G_M, M&S does make sense. I have ISAs with them, 3year fixed rate at 4%
However I'm trying to find out what the rate is on NatWests new bond that doesn't seem to be advertised yet.

It's here. 3.5%

Though although they claim this is the AER you actually only get that rate "from 24 January 2011 - 24 January 2013 ".

As you would need to open the account in advance of 24th (and only receive 0.5% in the interim), and as further deposits are not allowed (so you can't open it with £1 and then add the rest on 24th Jan) I would argue it's actually impossible to achieve 3.5% in year 1.

SallySunshine

They really are strange.
They seem to have overlapping bonds at the same rate but starting on 2 different dates.
To reinvest a maturing bond they offered to hold ours which matured on 22nd December and then the start date was 4th Jan, now they are stating for others the start date is 24th.

Still I wouldn't have been impressed if I'd agreed to reinvest at 3.6% and then found out a higher rate was being introduced a couple of weeks later.