How does Icesave work?

sav4it

Can you explain this direct debit thing to me please.I'm used to sending money by BACS which takes three days.
I opened an account last week and asked for £250 to be transferred. Apparently the money won't be in the account until next Wednesday.
Does it usually take that long (over a week)?


I'm concerned about loss of interest. Do funds lose 8 days of interest rather than the BACS which is 3?

oldagetraveller

Could be wrong, but I suspect the initial transfer from linked account might take that bit longer. Remember there is the weekend plus a bank holiday to contend with.
I have found it usually takes two to three banking days. I like the Icesave DD process personally in that they specify a date on which the transaction will affect your account.
The DD method should not take any longer than BACS method where you action the transfer.

Geoffo_M

Icesave is good. I transferred some cash this week from my bank account. Did it on the Wednesday, was there on the Friday. Plus, as has been mentioned, you are told the specific date the transfer will go through.

noh

There is no loss of interest on the way in to Icesave. The day it leaves your bank account is the day it arrives in your Icesave account. the transfer does have to be initiated 3 days before the effective date.

Nigel

mjmal51

Geoffo_M wrote: »

Icesave is good. I transferred some cash this week from my bank account. Did it on the Wednesday, was there on the Friday. Plus, as has been mentioned, you are told the specific date the transfer will go through.

Just remember that to get the Weds-Fri move (or Mon-Weds, whatever) you have to make the move before 11.00am, after that incurs an extra day. You get interest from the day it arrives in the Icesave account. I find them excellent.

YorkshireBoy

sav4it wrote: »

I opened an account last week and asked for £250 to be transferred. Apparently the money won't be in the account until next Wednesday.
Does it usually take that long (over a week)?

Condition 3t answers this question...

3t. When you set up a new direct debit, you will need to allow eight business days between submission of the completed direct debit instruction to us and the date on which the first payment is to be collected.

http://www.icesave.co.uk/media/terms_and_conditions.pdf

The 8 days enables them to comply with the direct debit guarantee.

I don't have an Icesave account myself, but would imagine that if you're moving existing savings from elsewhere to Icesave then the best way to initially fund it would be to make your first £250 payment by BACS, then initiate a £1 DD pull in, and finally pull the (possibly quite large) balance of your savings in by the standard 3 day DD method.

LondonDawg

set up an account with icesave a month or so ago and am gonna filter a set amount out once a month to drip into a regular saver. Is this withdrawl gonna affect my interest in icesave, or will it not matter what day of the month i take it out?

YorkshireBoy

LondonDawg wrote: »

set up an account with icesave a month or so ago and am gonna filter a set amount out once a month to drip into a regular saver. Is this withdrawl gonna affect my interest in icesave, or will it not matter what day of the month i take it out?

You're losing interest whist ever your money is in transit. You therefore want to avoid weekends & Bank Holidays wherever possible.

If you're doing the drip feed by online transfers, then you want to be actioning your request to send money from Icesave on a Monday. That way, it should hit your nominated account on Wednesday - meaning you should be able to move it onward to the regular saver so that it arrives on Friday. The result will (probably) be 4 days lost interest (at 6.20%) each month.

If you're making the regular saver deposit manually (eg at a LTSB or YBS branch), then you should be able to transfer from Icesave as late as Wednesday - meaning you could withdraw from the nominated current account, and manually deposit, on the Friday. The result here should only be 2 days lost interest.

mjmal51

From experience if you arrange the transfer from Icesave to nominated account in advance then it leaves Icesave on that selected day and arrives in your nominated account that same day.

LondonDawg

Thanks for the reply. I currently have it set up for the for a monthly transfer on the 2nd of every month. So as u suggest, the best way would be to not transfer automated, but to pick the closest monday to the beginning of the month to transfer? Also if am losing interest each time i transfer. Will it be particularly worth my while drip feeding £500 a month at 7.1% into YBS (via current account) if am losing interest on my icesave 6.2% int. account each time? So YBS worth it or not in ur opinion.

YorkshireBoy

mjmal51 wrote: »

From experience if you arrange the transfer from Icesave to nominated account in advance then it leaves Icesave on that selected day and arrives in your nominated account that same day.

Are you sure?

Whilst they pull the money in by DD (meaning same day debit/credit), they send the money to your nominated current account by BACS - which means you suffer the standard 3 day wait. Indeed, the Icesave T&C's state...

5e. ...<snip>...It will normally take three or four working days for withdrawals to be credited to your nominated account.