A&L's online saver T&C's

ps_live

I have just read the T&C's for A&L's online saver account.

Am I right in thinking A&L do not penalise the saver at all for instant withdrawals?

For example, if I were to create a Standing Order on the account to pay £100/month into my FD Current account, would A&L not penalise me with regards to interest?

Basically, I want to add another 5k to my stooze-pot, but I'm not keen on paying the monthly charges out of my own money.

Anyone got a definitive answer?

cheers :beer:

Pete

grumbler

The definitive answer is: NO PENALTIES FOR ANY WITHDRAWLS. Interest is calculated on daily baisis.

MarkyMarkD

There's no penalty, but (assuming the credit card payments are being made by DD) you'd have to leave a good few days (at least 4 I should think) to ensure that the money reaches your current account before the DD hits.

If you can possibly afford the repayments out of income, it would be better to do that than keep transferring money to meet the payments due to the lost interest each time.

ps_live

MarkyMarkD wrote:

There's no penalty, but (assuming the credit card payments are being made by DD) you'd have to leave a good few days (at least 4 I should think) to ensure that the money reaches your current account before the DD hits.

If you can possibly afford the repayments out of income, it would be better to do that than keep transferring money to meet the payments due to the lost interest each time.

I realise I'll accrue slightly less interest, but I still think I'll gain more interest this way than if I just have 5k in the pot (on a Virgin card £5/month). After all, interest on 10k less £100/month is STILL going to be more than just the 5k by itself, if you see what I mean.

I check my accounts ever day, so I was thinking about just setting a SO up at the start of each month for roughly the min payment, then paying the payment once it had reached my current account.

Many thanks for your help guys :beer:

Pete

MarkyMarkD

I know what you are saying. I'd still pay the credit card by DD (always) as that saves lost days "in the system", as long as you make sure the money's in the current account in good time.

muddyfox470

One thing about A&L if i may add, is that i have found their staff helpful and easy to explain problems to via the phone, i guess i have been lucky.

However they do seem to be cheating you out of a bit of money, i have an Online Saver too, and am transferring money from other accounts that i have closed down into it, and also putting excess money i dont really need into it to stop me spending. However, when i sent some money over to the A&L via a direct debit, the money came out of the Natwest account on the friday, and it was showing up on the A&L website immediately, however as 'not available' i.e. similar to uncleared funds. But what annoyed me is that the money didnt clear until the following thursday, that is like 3/4 working days interest lost due to their clearing system, money (that admittedly isn't that much) but that they are making out of me, by keeping it back rather than putting it straight in, and allowing it to clear asap. It did seem extraordinary slow, it probably is just as quick to put in a cheque from a different bank into another bank account.

Bearing in mind that when you wish to action a Direct debit you have to put it through the system 2/3 days before hand, i.e. i put the request through on Tuesday/Wednesday, Money came out of my Natwest account on Friday, and Money was cleared only on the following Thursday. It does seem ridiculously long for the money to clear electronically.

However i don't know what it is like for other companies so this is only my experience with this.

Otherwise it is a great thing to have, as i can build up my money, and when i get my first student loan, and overdraft, i can transfer it all over to the Online Saver, earn interest and transfer it back over when i need it. I will just have to wait and see how it all goes :P

Cheers

Ian

Milarky

As I understand muddyfox he has an Online Saver linked to his Natwest Bank account?

Could it just be that the money actually starts to earn interest in the A&L OLS from the date it leaves Natwest, and the fact that it remain 'unavailable' for clearing purposes for a few days need not mean you are losing any further days interest? [it will all be in the fine print of course!]

MarkyMarkD

I suspect that Milarky is right ... whilst DDs give same day value, they can be rejected for quite a long time after the value date and A&L are probably being cautious about that. Given that it's a savings account, you would be rather strange if you wanted to withdraw the money you'd only just deposited via DD within the first week.

The Online Saver Ts & Cs state that interest is earned from the day after the day the money is deposited from another bank (but the same day as deposit from another A&L account - i.e. there is no lost interest in that situation).

lipidicman

Do A&L allow you to set up a standing order FROM this savings account? Id like to do this myself

Milarky

Do A&L allow you to set up a standing order FROM this savings account?

I believe that it is only possible to transfer money bewteen the A&L OLS and one linked bank account. Unless you mean by 'standing order' a regular payment to your bank account then I think the answer has to be a 'no'.

If you have an A&L current account you can still transfer into that whenever you want so as to coincide with any SO that you have set up from it [e.g. £100 paid from bank a/c on the 13th of each month to Organistion 'O'. Set up ONS to transfer £100 to A&L current a/c on the 13th of the month anytime during the current month]. You'd still have to visit the site monthly to do this but could set up a whole month's payment's [I'm guessing you can have multiple payments set up to leave the OLS!!] covering all your known SOs to third party accounts..

[This 'advance-dated' feature is what makes the OLS superior to other accounts linked to bank accounts - such as Nationwide's 'e-Savings' but you only get the full benefit of this if you can transfer cash internally to another A&L account and not to a different bank]

MarkyMarkD

I wouldn't advise doing what Milarky says, unless you have an authorised OD limit on the current account which exceeds the amount you are paying out.

That's because if the transactions are processed in the wrong order, the current account will have insufficient funds for the outbound standing order, and that standing order will bounce leading to charges etc.

If there's an authorised OD limit, the outbound SO will be paid from the OD and then the balance will be replenished from the inbound transfer from the savings account - all on the same day, so no overdraft interest or charges will be incurred.

I don't know what order these transactions are processed, but I'd always advise people to have the money in their current account (with any bank) by close of business on the day BEFORE any outbound payments are due to hit the current account. This avoids any risk of the payment being bounced.

I don't think it's worth the hassle of setting up a whole month's payments in the way Milarky suggests, either, unless you really don't value your own time. It would be worth it for the largest transactions, but for smaller ones it's probably better to aggregate them and transfer money from savings to current weekly or so IMHO.