Britannia access saver 5

menai

I applied on line for above saver July 2nd. I returned application form and cheque on July 4th. Since then nothing. Is anybody else having delays and problems opening the above account?

Sayva

Lost in the post? Maybe call them up to confirm they've received it? The phone number they give for account opening status queries is 08448 44 88 44 (open 24hours) SayNoTo0870.com says 0161 855 0011 will get you through to the same line and will probably be cheaper

As long as you applied online before they withdrew it, you'll be able to open the account still. Obviously their delays are costing you interest, so phoning them may speed it up a bit.

G_M

They are swamped ad/or under-staffed, and their turn-around time is very slow.

However, they backdate interest to the date they received your appliation (not the date they open the account).

If in doubt, call them free on 0800 013 4860

mjmal51

Sayva wrote: »

As long as you applied online before they withdrew it, you'll be able to open the account still. Obviously their delays are costing you interest, so phoning them may speed it up a bit.

I hadn't realised that Saver 5 had been withdrawn, just looked at their website to confirm.
Only a few months ago I opened Saver 4 at 1.5% then a few weeks after they introduced Saver 5 at 1.65% so I had to close S4 and open S5 then move all the money over.
I now see that Saver 6 only has 1.4%, and this has been introduced only a matter of weeks after Saver 5 was announced!
Can't the Co-op (Britannia) decide what to do?

Sayva

mjmal51 wrote: »

Can't the Co-op (Britannia) decide what to do?

It's not just Britannia. I notice Virgin also ditched their market-leading ISA interest rate the other day not long after introducing it.

I'm not an economist, so I may be wrong (and someone will hopefully correct me), but my understanding is that since 1997, economic policy has meant that the Bank of England base rate is used to control inflation. If inflation goes up then the base rate goes down. During the global financial crisis, inflation shot up and the base rate went down to control it. That's why it's been so low for so long.

I think the banks' number crunchers were expecting the base rate to go up sometime soon and that's why they offered these limited access accounts with higher interest rates (expecting people to be trapped into them whilst interest rates rose)

Due to the sharp and unexpected rise in inflation announced this month, the number crunchers changed their minds about the chance of a base rate increase and ditched these accounts because they don't think they'll be as profitable as they thought!

bigadaj

Sayva wrote: »

It's not just Britannia. I notice Virgin also ditched their market-leading ISA interest rate the other day not long after introducing it.

I'm not an economist, so I may be wrong (and someone will hopefully correct me), but my understanding is that since 1997, economic policy has meant that the Bank of England base rate is used to control inflation. If inflation goes up then the base rate goes down. During the global financial crisis, inflation shot up and the base rate went down to control it. That's why it's been so low for so long.

I think the banks' number crunchers were expecting the base rate to go up sometime soon and that's why they offered these limited access accounts with higher interest rates (expecting people to be trapped into them whilst interest rates rose)

Due to the sharp and unexpected rise in inflation announced this month, the number crunchers changed their minds about the chance of a base rate increase and ditched these accounts because they don't think they'll be as profitable as they thought!

Don't want to be too harsh but I definitely don't think you are an economist.

Base rate has been at near zero levels because inflation has been low, and the risk ina recession or depression has been much higher than runaway inflation. Rates weren't too bad initially and it's the governments funding for lending scheme, which has given banks huge amounts of money at less than 1% that has dramatically hit offerings.

Generally people are very risk averse which means there's huge amounts of money swirling around looking for low risk places, and every institution that offers a market leading rate will be swamped as people transfer in. Everyone is still losing money as almost all savings rates are well below inflation, and investing is one of the few ways of getting ahead but that obviously carries risk.

So what happens is the banks or building socities have a target amount to raise, and currently that gets filled very quickly in which case they stop offering it, like any commodity it has to be controlled and managed.

Sayva

bigadaj wrote: »

Don't want to be too harsh but I definitely don't think you are an economist.

Haha, I won't give up the day job then

Thanks for explaining it.