Cash ISAs: The Best Currently Available List

Froggitt

"Best Buy" 3.5% ISA

<H1>Santander Flexible ISA - Apply

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To apply, please visit your local branch

How bizarre is that? It costs them fractions of a penny to get you to do the work online and set up your account, and yet they force you into the branch to open this account, taking up valuable staff time.

Talk about putting up barriers to entry!!!!!

Baldur

Froggitt wrote: »

How bizarre is that? It costs them fractions of a penny to get you to do the work online and set up your account, and yet they force you into the branch to open this account, taking up valuable staff time.

Talk about putting up barriers to entry!!!!!

It's pretty obvious that their systems (if they have any, knowing Santander) were being swamped by the popularity of the product via online applications, so reverting to 'quill pen banking' for the last few weeks of the tax year reduces the load on their Glasgow ISA centre which, from past experience, is incompetent even when not under pressure.

First Direct have achieved the same effect for the last two years by restricting applications to current account holders at the tail-end of the tax year.

Froggitt

If all they are doing is trying to restrict demand, why put up a leading rate.

Make it 2.75%, allow online apps, and pocket the difference seems a much better business model than clagging up the branches with form filling and best-buy seekers.

And as I said, make the punters do their own data entry and it doesnt really have to go anywhere near Glasgow.

Baldur

Froggitt wrote: »

If all they are doing is trying to restrict demand, why put up a leading rate.

If they didn't advertise a 'must have' headline rate, rather than a similar rate to those offered elsewhere, nobody with past experience of A&L/Santander would go anywhere near them, whether online or in-branch.

rb10

Froggitt wrote: »

If all they are doing is trying to restrict demand, why put up a leading rate.

Make it 2.75%, allow online apps, and pocket the difference seems a much better business model than clagging up the branches with form filling and best-buy seekers.

And as I said, make the punters do their own data entry and it doesnt really have to go anywhere near Glasgow.

It's probably simply because of the way that their system works.

I imagine that when you open an account online, it then requires their ISA centre to do some work to it manually to actually open it. They then can't be certain to get it done before the deadline.

Plenty of places work in a similar way to this - e.g. you can't ever apply for a Barclays Regular Saver online.

Online is not always as automated as you'd expect.

MarkyMarkD

Eh?

I opened my wife a Barclays Regular Saver online. No paperwork involved.

DemiDee

For some reason, I've not been able to access First Direct's website for some time now, despite being able to access everything else on the internet. So I'm not sure what their current and upcoming rates are for ISAs. Does anyone here know if they compare favourably to other providers. Mine's currently with FD and I don't really want all the hassle of swapping if it's not a bad rate.

AbbieCadabra

rb10 wrote: »

It's probably simply because of the way that their system works.

I imagine that when you open an account online, it then requires their ISA centre to do some work to it manually to actually open it. They then can't be certain to get it done before the deadline.

Plenty of places work in a similar way to this - e.g. you can't ever apply for a Barclays Regular Saver online.

Online is not always as automated as you'd expect.

nope, it was only a couple of days ago that the online application was withdrawn. it's as already said, Santander have got inefficient systems and/or they can't cope with the demand!

Froggitt

DemiDee wrote: »

For some reason, I've not been able to access First Direct's website for some time now, despite being able to access everything else on the internet. So I'm not sure what their current and upcoming rates are for ISAs. Does anyone here know if they compare favourably to other providers. Mine's currently with FD and I don't really want all the hassle of swapping if it's not a bad rate.

FD have this neat trick where you keep an ISA for a year at a great rate, and then they transfer you onto the "next to nothing" rate once the year is up. Im in process of moving both of mine away from them before their rate plummets.

RayWolfe

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Eh?

I opened my wife a Barclays Regular Saver online.

What a decent chap you are! I hope she was appreciative ... my wife never thanks me for all the good accounts I set up for her.