ALLIANCE & LEICESTER onlines savings account.

sillybean

I have both an A&L and ING direct account. Having read the news letter from the site about the A&L savings account i moved all my money to the A&L account.....

35 days later....no movement in the account. Emailed them and they tell me they pay interest once yearly? Im sorry but thats really rubbish. Because ING pay monthly.

Secondly the way that banks work is they take your savings and then lend it out. They are allowed to lend out more than the actually hold in savings. Because everyone will not withdraw all their money at one go. So they are making a lot of money of my money but pay me once a year because they cant be bothered to implement the infrastructure that will pay the interest monthly.....

im sure though because of basel 2, they are trying to calculate the risk of the people they lend money to (as they have to) more accuratly to reduce their capital requirements....and make even more money from my money!

Personally i have moved all my money back to ING because i prefer to get the interest monthly as it pays for sponsoring orphans in the third world (as im not allowed to use interest)


anyhows if you didnt know A&L pay yearly....if you want your money montly i think ing is best.


thats my two pence.

grumbler

sillybean wrote:

... they tell me they pay interest once yearly? Im sorry but thats really rubbish. Because ING pay monthly.

The difference between getting interest monthly and yearly is only emotional! The total amount of interest earned depends only on the interest rate. If you close your A&L account in the middle of a year they will still pay you interest earned.

sillybean wrote:

Personally i have moved all my money back to ING because i prefer to get the interest monthly as it pays for sponsoring orphans in the third world

This was a mistake.
Emotions, emotions again!

ED

Alliance + Leicester's cheque account held by a member of my family (Premier Plus Current account) pays interest monthly - and at 5.37% gross, 5.50% AER (because opened last year). This allows a balance up to £2,500 to earn that rate - typically close to £10 per month. £1,000 has to be deposited per month, not necessarily from employment.

Our own little disappointment with A+L is that it takes 24 hours to move £'s from Online Saver to cheque account. Most financial institutions do it same-day.

Paul_Varjak

sillybean wrote:

35 days later....no movement in the account. Emailed them and they tell me they pay interest once yearly? Im sorry but thats really rubbish. Because ING pay monthly.

That is not A&L's fault. Clearly you did not read the terms & conditions.

grumbler

ED wrote:

Our own little disappointment with A+L is that it takes 24 hours to move £'s from Online Saver to cheque account.

From my experience (and I checked this again before posting) it is not true. All transactions in both directions are same day. Yes, they not only have the same date on the statements, but this date is the date I actually made the transaction.

MarkyMarkD

I agree with Paul and grumbler in almost all their points.

If two accounts have the same AER, and one pays interest monthly and the other annually, it makes no difference. You are getting the same interest.

The only reason monthly interest might be preferable is if you need the income to spend on a regular basis.

Transfers between A&L online saver and cheque account are nearly always same day value - about 90-95% of mine are same day - but there are some circumstances in which there is a one day delay.

I don't know what your rant about Basel 2 is on about - no relevance at all to the frequency of paying interest on savings accounts.

ED

grumbler + MarkyMarkD, thanks for reporting here your experience of (mainly) same-day movement of £'s from Alliance + Leicester's Online Saver to their cheque account.

I for one now feel more encouraged to put £'s into the Online Saver, now that I know you 2 have been able to access funds same day via the cheque a/c.

Paul_Varjak

I think that if you move funds between the A&L bank account and A&L savings account online, then this it is instantaneous. If you do it via any other method, I think it takes one day.