MSE News: NS&I revives inflation-beating savings certificates

heather8

Consumerist wrote: »

The banks and building societies are complaining that they can't compete with this new NS&I issue. I'm starting to wonder whether this declining of payments is deliberate.

I phoned my bank Nationwide, to make sure that they would accept a 15,000 withdrawl from a debit card, as on the NSI website, it mentions that some banks may have a cap on the amount that can be taken on a debit card. Nationwide, said that so long as I had sufficient funds then it wouldn't be a problem. However, the money is still sat in my account and I applied on Thursday. I'm sure it will be gone tomorrow.

Old_Slaphead

heather8 wrote: »

I phoned my bank Nationwide, to make sure that they would accept a 15,000 withdrawl from a debit card, as on the NSI website, it mentions that some banks may have a cap on the amount that can be taken on a debit card. Nationwide, said that so long as I had sufficient funds then it wouldn't be a problem. However, the money is still sat in my account and I applied on Thursday. I'm sure it will be gone tomorrow.

In my experience NSI transfers sometimes take a couple of days to go through

whu

I think there might also be a slight delay because of the demand- hopefully that is the case - I will find out in the next few days!!!!

dqnet

Consumerist wrote: »

Only one but that's confidential information.

If you read through the thread, some have admitted, confessed or otherwise indicated they have applied for them. Beyond that, NS&I have said they have had high volumes of applications so I think they are quite popular.

Hahaha - fair enough

KTF

SallyG wrote: »

NS&I say :
"We accept Maestro, Switch, Visa Debit or MasterCard Debit. The debit card must be in your name issued by a UK bank. We’ll start processing your payment as soon as we receive your card details, so please make sure you have enough money in your account when you apply."
So I moved in enough to cover it - my bank have confirmed the payment's been authorised - having so much dosh in my current account makes me twitchy about fraud- how long will it take NS&I to complete the deal/ for the money to exit my current account?

My LloydsTSB account still shows the full amount on the welcome screen but if I click on the account details then the available balance us the total less the amount I have paid to NS&I so it looks like it has gone through and will hopefully sort itself out tomorrow.

jegjeg

Consumerist wrote: »

Correct address:
Savings Certificates, National Savings and Investments,
FREEPOST GW3276, Glasgow, G58 1BR.

ILSC application form (pdf) from NS&I can be found

Thank you for that link. Indeed, as you say the address on the form is:
National Savings and Investments,
FREEPOST GW3276,
Glasgow, G58 1BR.

But on the instructions on the NS&I website (Other Ways to Apply>Post) it tells you to send the form to:
Index-linked Savings Certificates
National Savings and Investments
Glasgow, G58 1SB

Hence my confusion.

oldvicar

Hope you don't mind, but given some reports of declined debit card payments I thought it could be helpful to repeat myself:

oldvicar wrote: »

I have read above that people are buying in to this issue but are splitting their application in to smaller amounts - e.g. someone wanting the max £15K said they would buy 3 lots of £5K.

From personal experience of doing a similar thing with earlier NS&I certificate issues I would say Be careful that your payment is not rejected by your bank's security systems as a suspected duplicate. I have had an experience of a 2nd payment for an identical amount being declined by my debit card issuer.

I would sugest that if for whatever reason you wish to split your purchases across separate certificates, then avoid buying identical amounts on the same day. For example buy £5K on 3 consecutive days, or if buying in quick succession on the same day try varying the amounts such as £4900, £5000 and £5100.

Someone above pointed out that Certificates can be partially encashed so technically there is no need to split purchases. But I fully understand why some people want to do this.

PS: mine were online purchases

Stompa

Does anybody know how long after applying online (as a new customer) it takes before you receive your "customer/holder's number"?

I assume it's in the Welcome letter?

Thanks

Rollinghome

lisyloo wrote: »

But there is no advantage to holding on as in the second case your certificate will mature 7 days later, so you don't gain anything really.

Are you sure? Bear with me while I think about it.

If you take one out on say the 1st of the month, in 12 months time you'll be entitled to the RPI increase over the previous 12 months (for simplicity ignoring that it's the RPI of two calender earlier that counts). To get the RPI for 13 months you'd need to delay cashing in for a further month.

If on the other hand you wait until say the 31th of the month, after 12 months you'd just need to stay in just one more day into the next month to get the RPI increase over a period of 13 months - I think.

It's possible the RPI for the extra month could be no higher the preceding month but by waiting until after the figures are released you'll then know how much you'd benefit by hanging on still longer. The RPI figures are released around the 15th of each month.

There could be an advantage at the beginning too. By delaying until after the RPI is announced in the middle of the month you'll whether the RPI, the actual index, is up or down. It doesn't always rise month on month. If it had gone down since your start date (of the month before) you'd need to recover that decline before getting a return.

That all sounds plausible to me but someone else might have spotted the flaw. If so, I'm just back from an extended afternoon barbie and that's my excuse.

Consumerist

Index linking and the fixed interest are consolidated into the value of the certificate on the anniversary of the purchase date (using the latest index that was available at the beginning of the month). To get a complete month's indexing and (pro-rata) fixed interest, you need to cash in on the date following the date of purchase. e.g. If you purchased a certificate on the 26th of the month then you should cash-in on the 27th of the month. Waiting beyond that gives nothing extra until a month later.

Edit
You get indexing from the latest anniversary value plus 1/12 of the applicable fixed-rate interest for each complete month since the latest anniversary.