15K looking for high interest home. ICICI?

Willow6

All the great deals on here seem to be £250 a month max blah blah blah must have a current account blah blah blah.... you know what I mean.

Anyway most of mine and my partners savings are in Yorkshire Building Society at the moment. But we recently had a letter from them saying that they are closing down our town's branch and the nearest one will be 40 miles away. So basically we are looking to move the £15,000 we have in ther (mostly joint account but also 2 kids accounts) to another account and just wanted a bit of a heads up on what is best?

Under Martin's savings link on the front page he mentions ICICI which I have never heard of before but their rate looks good. A stupid question maybe but is my money safe with such a relatively new player in the UK market as the £15k will represent all of our current savings (excluding ISAs). Maybe somebody also with money saved with them can give me the lowdown on that side of things.

Any other suggestions would also be great.

Graham_Devon

It's 'safe' as it's protected by the FSA up to £33,000 (you will lose 10% if they did go under).

ICICI is one of the biggest, if not the biggest banking institutions in India though, think HSBC here and you will get the idea. So the liklihood of them going under is incredibly minisclue.

Many people have had problems with them, in terms of transfers in and out. I have had no problems with them personally and they were very helpful when I locked myself out of my account, and it was actually a pleasure talking to a call centre in India!

masonic

Graham_Devon wrote:

Many people have had problems with them, in terms of transfers in and out.

For that reason, it is important that you make sure the account is set up properly (by doing small test transfers into and out of the account) before you commit any large sums of money.

YorkshireBoy

Willow6 wrote:

Any other suggestions would also be great.

If you're otherwise happy with YBS, and since you don't seem to mind running the account(s) over the internet, why not consider YBS's Internet Saver accounts for some/all of your money?

There was only a 0.15% differential between YBS and ICICI before the latter raised their rate this week. If YBS raise their rates by the same 0.2% (no guarantees obviously), you will only be £22.50 a year worse off (gross) on your £15K by staying with YBS.

Something to think about perhaps?

masonic

YorkshireBoy wrote:

If you're otherwise happy with YBS, and since you don't seem to mind running the account(s) over the internet, why not consider YBS's Internet Saver accounts for some/all of your money?

People really are going to start to think you're on comission!

vij1366

try the allaince and leicester direct saver pays 5.64 min 5000 opening max 15000 ,,only draw back if you w/draw in any month you lose the interest on that month.

YorkshireBoy

masonic wrote:

People really are going to start to think you're on comission!

Just to prove I'm not, I'm happy to slag them off by saying that it takes a full 5 days to withdraw funds by BACS. :mad:

However, to jump back onto the fence, they do say it will in the T&C's.

Now to get back into bed with them again, how many other 5.30% (possibly soon to be 5.55% - now *I'm* being sanguine ) paying accounts are there that come with a £250/day link card?

Oh dear, now I don't know where I am.

Willow6

Thanks Yorkshireboy I will look into that.

[Deleted User]

You can also manage all your YBS accounts online (even 'branch' accounts) and, depending on the type of account, make internal transfers between them, or transfers to/from external institutions.

Their Regular Saver account is quite popular because

1) It offers a reasonable interest rate (6.75% before any prospective change)
2) You can deposit up to £500 per month (many similar are limited to £250).
3) You can deposit up to a ceiling of £20000 (many similar are limited to 1 years worth).

[Deleted User]

masonic wrote:

People really are going to start to think you're on comission!

Now that would be picked up by spellcheck!

YorkshireBoy

Deleted_User wrote:

Their Regular Saver account is quite popular because

1) It offers a reasonable interest rate (6.75% before any prospective change)
2) You can deposit up to £500 per month (many similar are limited to £250).
3) You can deposit up to a ceiling of £20000 (many similar are limited to 1 years worth).

And the icing on the cake is that, if the £15K is 'long-term' savings, you can both open a Regular Saver and feed £500/month into each from the joint Internet Saver.

This means you'll earn around 6% gross (average of 5.30% and 6.75%) on £12K of your money in the first year. Obviously it gets better still in subsequent years.

Even if you do find you need some money, you're allowed one penalty free withdrawal per account year.