Halifax Help To Buy ISA rate dropping!

Westie983

Existing customers will keep the 4% rate. (for the moment)

The reduced interest is for new applications from Tuesday 3rd.

So if you are wanting 4% I suggest opening ASAP, tomorrow if in branch or Monday if online.

My source is intranet at work as others have mentioned I work for Halifax.

The website hasn't been changed yet as you can still open the account at the advertised 4% rate and the rate and website will be updated on Tuesday.

Westie983

Flobberchops wrote: »

Holy moley. What's the source for that? Your link doesn't seem to mention the new rate.

Does that mean existing Halifax HTB accounts will continue to get 4%?

The link was to open the account at the current rate of 4% it wont show the reduced rate till the account drops on Tuesday.

As yes if you are an existing customer when the rate drops you keep the 4% hence why I have mentioned if you are interested to open before it drops on Tuesday.

chris9393

Thanks for the heads up.. I was planning on opening up one next week but just went ahead and did it now.

Klopek

Can anybody advise based on previous offers from Halifax just how long the existing customers will likely keep the 4% rate?

I'm unsure whether to go with Santander or Halifax. Does anybody have experience with Santander to have an idea how volatile their variable rate products are?

Flobberchops

Thanks for the info and clarification.

As Klopek says though I'd be interested in knowing whether existing 4% customers will enjoy that rate for the lifetime (no pun intended) of the ISA or whether we should expect that to drop too after a grace period. If so, April 2017 would suit me fine as I was planning on switching to a LISA anyway...

Peacefulwaters: I'm not sure Halifax have cornered the market any more now that Santander also offer 4%. In fact they're actively disregarding the market share now - has the initial influx of new customers served its purpose? Or did Halifax get cold feet waiting for a Base Rate rise that never came?

tripled

chris9393 wrote: »

Thanks for the heads up.. I was planning on opening up one next week but just went ahead and did it now.

If you can, make sure you stick the 1200 quid in it tonight/tomorrow if you haven't already! Then you can squeeze an extra month and so 50 quid out of it compared to waiting until next week.

colsten

tripled wrote: »

If you can, make sure you stick the 1200 quid in it tonight/tomorrow if you haven't already! Then you can squeeze an extra month and so 50 quid out of it compared to waiting until next week.

Not at Halifax, as the monthly payments must be made by the 25th of a month.

george4064

Remember folks, you can always transfer an existing HTB ISA to another provider.

PeacefulWaters

Flobberchops wrote: »

Peacefulwaters: I'm not sure Halifax have cornered the market any more now that Santander also offer 4%.

Looking at government figures, it's clear that sales volumes prior to Santander offering 4% were massive and have tailed off significantly more recently.

I'd expect Halifax to have opened c75% of all HTB ISA accounts in the market at this stage.

In fact they're actively disregarding the market share now - has the initial influx of new customers served its purpose? Or did Halifax get cold feet waiting for a Base Rate rise that never came?

They knew the interest rate outlook when the product launched in December. They misjudged market pricing.

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Promotional rate to attract business. Nothing more.

It is, but until Santander came along it was so far out there they will have been swamped. This will have attracted more flows than they expected adding hugely to the cost of the product. It will also have attracted more potential first time buyers than LBG has an appetite to lend to.

If they'd priced at 3% initially they would have still led the market (Virgin are small fry) but been able to attract funds at a much lower marginal cost.

Westie983

I don't know anything more then existing customers can keep the 4% any new applications will be at the rate of 2.5%.

As with any variable interest account it can be changed with notice, but can see it remaining till LISA is launched,

Any more updates I will post back.