Natwest e-ISA

lisyloo

I know there is a chance that the money may not transfer by the 6 April

For transfers it makes no odds.
Old money can be transferred whenever you like.
The allowances only apply to new money.

hopefully it will be before the 16 April and I will get the 3.5% from the beginning.

No you won't get the bonus before 16th april.
You will get 2.5% before that and 3.5% from that date.
Nat west say this is so that they can synchronise all accounts.
Why do you think they will single you out for special treatment when the whole reason for doing it is to synchronise all accounts on their computer systems?

I'm leaving mine but of course we can't control the time transfers take.

burnoutbabe

I am happy that having opened the account 29th March (and got account numbers etc) my transfer in will happen within about 15 days so i will only have a minimal amount of days at 2.5% before getting 3.5%.

I will still do this years isa payment on 6th April as better to get 2.5% than the 0 from it being sat in my current account waiting!

lisyloo

I will still do this years isa payment on 6th April as better to get 2.5% than the 0 from it being sat in my current account waiting!

Or you could pay it in to your old ISA on 6th (if it's paying more than 2.5%) and then do the xfer.
I'm going to do it that way round.
I guess it depends on how long you expect the xfer to take, but shouldn't make a huge amount of difference either way.
My last xfer was almost immediate.

burnoutbabe

i managed to, by accident, xfer this years isa PLUS last years isa into my transfer isa earlier this tax year (both current year isa's being with barclays)

So I may as well just send the money over direct on 6th. Though I would like to try and check the account online first to ensure its all okay. (got some letter about online banking yesterday)

chiny

DragonQ wrote: »

It isn't clear whether having over £30,000 in the account will give you 3.5% on the entire balance or only 3.5% on anything over £30,000. If the former is true, then it was probably ignored because not too many people have that kind of money to transfer, I'd imagine. If the latter is true, then there are better accounts out there unless you have a huge sum of money accumulated from past ISA years.

A good point and very irritating that an answer is not easily, if at all, available online, which of course makes me assume the worst. I did think of ringing NatWest but I simply would not trust any answer.

Having said that, the interest rate, even if adversely tiered, is respectable for the lower tiers.

Anyone actually have a URL to an answer ?

mgns

I rang Natwest before I opened the e-isa and they said it was 3.5% on the full balance - can't say I've come across anything in the literature to suggest otherwise. Unless, someone has heard anything different?

burnoutbabe

i got a statememt today, saying the isa that i got account number/sort code on 29th March, was actually opened 4th April. pushing the 1% interest into next months (may's) numbers.

bit sneaky but still, better than nothing for rest of the year.

lisyloo

bit sneaky

I know it's dissapointing, but I doubt they have gone out of their way to individually push your ISA out by a few days.
It's all done automatically by computer and I'm sure you haven't been singled out.

burnoutbabe

well they have decided to show an account opening date that is 5 days later than when the account was opened and i could pay money into it? so some automatic system says account opening is at some later point than the date the account was first created (ie i get the "congrats, your account is opened" message and I'd assume that to be the opening date).

I'm sure its not just me, its just a strange way of them defining account opening date, which affects everyone. And of course it is in their favour.

lisyloo

when the account was opened

Was it fully opened? or just applied for?
Had it passed all their checks?

so some automatic system says account opening is at some later point than the date the account was first created

I am guessing here a bit, but there may be some internal process/checks that go on, although I would agree that it's misleading if they send you emails saying it's "opened".

You could try a formal complaint.
Worst case you might get an explanation of their procedures, best case you'll get a month of 1%, but sometimes it's worth working out exactly what you ar arguing over. If it's means £2.50 then it might not be worth getting yourself too worked up over although I fully understand that sometimes you do need to make a point.

I suspect this is sloppiness and incompentance rather than being cynical or malicious. I suspect they have some internal procedures somewhere and what they should have done was NOT give you the impression that the account was fully open when it wasn't.
I really cannot imagine that they have put systems in place deliberately to shave off 1% for a month, it really wouldn't be economically viable for them to do that deliberately.

Mine appears to have been opened on the day I applied (26th March), but I am an existing customer so probably bypass some of the ID checks.

But if you're really not happy complain.
Put in all the facts and explain what you'd like them to do about it - presumably add on your 1% for the month. Given that it costs them £500 if you go to the FOS, I'd bet you get the money "as a goodwill gesture".

Personally I have a very strong sense of "fair play" so I am inclined to follow these sort of things up, but I would suggest you "value" the loss here, before decide whether to any action.