Alliance & leicester Direct saver account

**woody123**

Hi,

I'm thinking of opening an account with the Alliance & leicester with their directsaver account being 6.1% AER (5.94APR)..

I already have some savings with a local building society where i have a book showing the withdrawals and amounts i have paid in. Would i have this same book if was with the Alliance & leicester?

When i go on the Alliance & leicester site and use the interest calculator it says that If interest is paid into your DirectSaver it will compound each month. Could anyone tell me what this means please?

The savings account i have now is not very good and its one of those where you have to give notice of a withdrawal i think the APR is 2.5% so i'm losing money fast.

Thanks

SeanW

It's an online account, so I doubt you will receive statements, you would view all the statements online.

Compounding means you earn interest on the interest that has been credited to the account. i.e. if after 1 month, you get £10 interest deposited, the next month you would get approx £10 again, plus 6.1% on the £10 interest already deposited from last month.

You don't have to give notice on this account, but if you withdraw money in a month, you wont get any interest at all that month.

**woody123**

Thanks for that Sean,

I've just looked at my local building society interest rates

http://www.dudleybuildingsociety.co.uk/save28dayspecial.htm#aer

Looks like i should go with this directsaver asap. Its the £10,000+ rates i'm looking at.

Closing my account with them should be pretty straight forward shouldn't it?

Hugeass304

Don't forget if you withdraw as little as £1 from your Direct Saver Account you will forfeit an entire months interest on the total amount. It's no good if you need to keep dipping into this money. At least !!!!!! Turpin had the decency to wear a mask when he stole your money!

**woody123**

Thanks for the warning but i will not be dipping into the savings:j

Does anyone know if i can transfer the money from my local building society straight to the A&L or would they have to make a cheque payable to me and i transfer the money from my bank account.

Graham_Devon

Hugeass304 wrote: »

Don't forget if you withdraw as little as £1 from your Direct Saver Account you will forfeit an entire months interest on the total amount. It's no good if you need to keep dipping into this money. At least !!!!!! Turpin had the decency to wear a mask when he stole your money!

Which I think is the reason most people, including myself leave a certain amount (say 1k) in another account which does not have this penalty.

Thats certainly my case anyway. ICICI for dipping into when/if I need it and A&L for proper saving and the penalty works well, a couple of times I have thought maybe I should take some out and buy this or that. The penalty has stopped me, which is great

DJFearRoss

Does anyone know if the A&L PlusSaver account has that silly Penalty thing as well, as I wish to transfer my money from it to the Direct saver? They have removed the T&C from their website.

Also, is it not correct that you don't get interest for the calendar month in you make a withdrawal? I thought that meant if that if you withdrew money on the 1st of the month you would still have earned the same interest, or does it mean 31days?

Kazza242

DJFearRoss wrote: »

Does anyone know if the A&L PlusSaver account has that silly Penalty thing as well, as I wish to transfer my money from it to the Direct saver?

No, the A&L Plus Saver doesn't penalise you for making withdrawals. It is an easy access account.

DJFearRoss wrote: »

Also, is it not correct that you don't get interest for the calendar month in you make a withdrawal? I thought that meant if that if you withdrew money on the 1st of the month you would still have earned the same interest, or does it mean 31days?

That is correct, the A&L Direct Saver doesn't pay any interest on the whole balance in any month where a withdrawal is made. If you need to make a withdrawal you'll need to move the whole balance to your Plus Saver on the 1st. Alternatively, you could keep some spare money in your Plus Saver for emergency purposes leaving the remainder in your Direct Saver. This way it's less likely that you'll need to withdraw funds from your Direct Saver.