Halifax Guaranteed Saver

glensmen

As far as I can tell, Halifax have two similar easy access accounts: Guaranteed Saver, 0.5% and Guaranteed Saver Reward, 2% - I obviously chose to open the Reward account. Throughout the process, all references were to "Guaranteed Saver", so I suspected I'd need to phone after the account was active to upgrade - not a problem. The letter I got explicitly thanks me for opening a Halifax Guaranteed Saver. When I go to the online banking system, it again lists my account as a Guaranteed Saver...but with a stated interest rate of 2%. Can anyone clarify what the situation is here? If they're going to be sneaky and have similarly named accounts with significantly different attributes they really should be 100% accurate when differentiating them, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Mikeyorks

The clue is in this part of the T&Cs :

The reward interest rate is calculated at the end of the 12 month reward period if the conditions of the offer have been met

For the most part these (frequent issue) guaranteed reward accounts contain criteria that can't be determined if met until the end of the 12 months. Sometimes it's a limited number of withdrawals / sometimes a minimum balance ......... and that can't be assessed until the period end. Hence they can't tell if you meet the 'Reward' criteria until then ...... so it doesn't appear in the account name ..... ever.

In this case I can't actually spot a minimum criteria ..... which is unusual. But they're maintaining the naming conventions always used. You presumably have the opening agreement which tells you what you have.

opinions4u

It is actually impossible to open a Guaranteed Saver account these days.

You can only open a Guaranteed Saver Reward.

Nothing to worry about.

glensmen

Thanks for both replies. Both explanations make sense, it just still makes me a little bit nervous that everything refers to Guaranteed Saver.

Mikeyorks

I have one ...... and it fits the same criteria. Worry not .... you will get the 2% - as yours doesn't even have any criteria you need to meet!