BM Savings ISA? Never heard of them

plarka

A couple weeks ago there were a few god ISAs at 4% and also 4.15%, one was Halifax...and I was going to get one. Now we've gone away on holiday and I don't have my little device that shows me the secret number to get onto my accounts so I can't do anything with my money, and those ISAs are gone! The interest rates are all lower! There's one at 4% with BM Savings but I've never heard of them. Are they ok? Who knows what there will be available this weekend when we're back home! Argh! Didn't know they changed so fast!

alanobrien

BM savings are part of Birmingham Midshires so they should be fine

opinions4u

BM Savings were Birmingham Midshires Building Society.

Halifax bought them in 1999 and they are, along with Halifax, part of Lloyds Banking Group.

Their FSCS protection comes under the Bank of Scotland banking licence.

BM savings also administer savings accounts under the AA and Saga brands.

They quite often hit best buy tables or get quite close.

MoneySaverLog

So many different banks and building societies all under the LBG umbrella. All offering different interest rates and competing with each other under the same parent brand.

opinions4u

MoneySaverLog wrote: »

So many different banks and building societies all under the LBG umbrella. All offering different interest rates and competing with each other under the same parent brand.

They're very smart with how they "compete" across brands.

BM, AA and Saga are in very different market places to Halifax and Lloyds TSB. The BM 4.05% two year FRISA during the ISA season was almost certainly in place for one reason. Nothing to do with making BM the preferred home for fixed rate ISAs. But everything to do with making sure Santander didn't sit at the top of the best buy tables with their 4.00% offering. So any customers that they may have been about to lose in the FRISA market go to BM rather than Santander.

I'd hazard a guess that even the Halifax and Lloyds TSB brands have little cross-over in their customer base. Certainly within savings.

thenudeone

Nationwide do exactly the same with their Derbyshire and Dunfermline brands. The offers from these are not available at Nationwide branches.