Is a Scottish Widows bank account worth having ?

1jacks64

My mum has a savings plan with Scottish Widows which has now matured and Scottish Widows have offered her a Scottish Widows bank account. My mum wants to know if a Scottish Widows bank account is difficult to obtain ordinarily and she would also like to know whether it is even worth having a Scottish Widows bank account.

Any thoughts on this please?

LittleVoice

Scottish Widows is a subsidiary of Lloyds TSB.
"The main business of Scottish Widows Bank is arranging, entering into and administering mortgages and accepting deposits."

What are they offering as a "bank account"? Is it just a deposit account? What interest is paid? Do they actually just refer you to LTSB?

1jacks64

The account is called a High Interst Scottish Widows Bank Loyalty Deposit Account paying 5.51 with instant access up to £9,999.00. Balances above this pay more interest.

LittleVoice

HSBC has Online Saver paying 5.75% - have a look at that. But you don't get that interest in any month you make a withdrawal.

Birmingham Midshires have a WebSaver account about which they say:
+ Invest as little as £1 and earn a high interest rate of 5.70% gross/AER.
+ This rate includes a bonus of 0.75% for the first year.
+ Access your account at any time.
+ Make up to 6 penalty free withdrawals per annum.
So this is instant access, pays more than SWB (at least for the £9,999) but has the drawback that you can only withdraw 6 times a year. (Of course I guess that could be on six consecutive days and then nothing for the rest of the year.)