A little savings advice needed please!

blizeH

Hey guys, I'll try to keep this simple and not confuse the matter too much with figures.

Basically, at the moment I have the following accounts which I'm happy with:
- Lloyds Classic Plus with Web Saver means I can accumulate a little interest on readily available money that I use for all transactions.
- Lloyds Monthly Saver @ 8% which is maxed out each month (£250)
- Halifax ISA @ 5.25% which is maxed out each year (£3,000)

Now here's my question; I've got £22,000 in a Halifax Web Saver account, earning around 4% interest after tax. I was just wondering if there are any other accounts where I could get a better return? I should probably point out that I am happy with the Halifax so maybe wouldn't bother changing if the difference was under maybe a third of a percent, and also I'm not the sort of person who moves money around all the time; I find it too confusing!

Many thanks

Optimist

Icesave @ 5.7% from Jan 19th comes to mind straight away also look at ICICI

Heinz

Martin's article recommends the same two (and, as there's only 0.05% to choose between the two, it might be prudent to split it £11k/£11k.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1098730527,15721,

Robert_Sterling

Halifax has a regular saver paying 7% p.a.

blizeH

Both Icesave and ICI look fantastic thanks, I suppose they're both very reputable too? I notice Martin has mentioned that Icesave's customer service isn't too good just yet, but that's not really the end of the world since I hopefully won't have to even contact them! :-)

Optimist

Both are members of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, so if in the extremely unlikely event of them going bust you get back 100% of the first £2,000 of your total deposit with the bank and 90% of the next £33,000 amounting to a maximum payout of £31,700. The same as the Halifax.

One point to bear in mind with ICICI you need to log in at least once every 180 days or your password is removed and you have to apply for a new one. Its a security feature ! Not sure if the same applies to Icesave

blizeH

That's fantastic, thank you! Nice to have that re-assurance, I highly doubt I'll be going over £33,000 any time soon with that account anyway!

Will almost certainly go with one of those two now, that extra 1.7% is actually going to make a lot of difference to me so I guess the sooner I get it transferred over the better! Saying that, I can't see any mention of tax on those websites, I assume I'll get the full 5.7%/5.65%?

Unfortunately I don't think I can open that 7% Halifax account since I'm almost certain it works in the same way as my Lloyds monthly saver in that I need a current account running alongside it.

macca64

The Halifax 7% regular saver doesn't require a current account with Halifax to be opened. I beleive that you are able to fund this from the Halifax web saver, do a search on here, should throw up some results.

blizeH

Ah excellent cheers, will definitely check that out then, and probably open an account! :-)

Can I just confirm whether since Icesave for example says 5.45% AER that means tax has already been deducted?

Optimist

The interest is currently 5.45% it goes up to 5.70% on Friday the 17th. That is before tax

Mikeyorks

blizeH wrote:

1) Will almost certainly go with one of those two now, that extra 1.7% is actually going to make a lot of difference to me so I guess the sooner I get it transferred over the better!

2) Unfortunately I don't think I can open that 7% Halifax account since I'm almost certain it works in the same way as my Lloyds monthly saver in that I need a current account running alongside it.

1) You will only get an extra 0.7%, from the figures quoted. You're comparing net with the Halifax - against gross elsewhere? Not a meaningful comparison?
The Halifax standard Web pays 5% gross (but only 4.5% if you opened it with a cash card). They will pay up to 5.65% if you fix the rate / period - but with interest rates likely set to rise again shortly, probably better to wait before fixing?

2) You can pay a Reg Saver direct from your Web account by setting up a SO. The T&Cs say it can't be done ... but it can and Halifax are aware and not seemingly intent on closing the loophole.