Ulster Bank: Easy Access Savings Account at 1.25% pa

[Deleted User]

I have just transferred £400 online from my Ulster Bank E Savings account to my Santander 123 current account. The money is showing in my Santander account.

You need to set up the payee using your Anytime Banking card, PIN and a card reader (any bank card reader will do). Once you have set up the payee, you can make further payments to that payee without the card and reader.

colsten

tom98765 wrote: »

Just a word of warning on the Ulster eSaver 1.25% account. You cannot withdraw your money to a 3rd party account, i.e. a bank account not with Ulster Bank.

The only reason why you can't send money to a 3rd party account is that you have not yet set up any payees. Provided you have an Ulster card, the PIN for it, and a card reader in which you can use that card, you can set up any number of payees with a sort code and account number. You could even set up international payees. Once you have set up payees, you can make payments to those payees. Payments to UK payees are processed by faster payment and arrive the other end literally instantly. I have been making such payments from Ulster savings accounts to various Santander, Nationwide, Lloyds, TSB, First Direct and HSBC accounts for ages.

glider3560

Finally received my card, card reader and PIN yesterday.

Although the card reader is the same as all the others, this one seems to permit PIN changes (which my Nationwide card reader won't do, even with the Ulster Bank card).

Set a withdrawal for 26th July (wouldn't let me choose 25th July - the current day). After submitting, the money arrived in my current account immediately. I'm not sure this was some glitch, but beware if you set up a future dated payment.

colsten

glider3560 wrote: »

Set a withdrawal for 26th July (wouldn't let me choose 25th July - the current day). After submitting, the money arrived in my current account immediately. I'm not sure this was some glitch, but beware if you set up a future dated payment.

This is how Ulster and Natwest, and presumably also RBS, systems work. When you send money after the daily or weekly cut-off, it forces a date of the next working day. In all cases, though, the money gets sent instantly. :rotfl:

10_66

Well after 26 days of waiting for a card to go with the reader and PIN I have already received, I've admitted defeat today and have had to cancel the "card that's on its way" for another card that's on its way :mad:

eskbanker

colsten wrote: »

This is how Ulster and Natwest, and presumably also RBS, systems work. When you send money after the daily or weekly cut-off, it forces a date of the next working day. In all cases, though, the money gets sent instantly. :rotfl:

The way they word this on their helpful system effectively says it's too late to send the money tomorrow but how about today instead - you couldn't make it up!

It's too late to setup a payment to leave your account for the next working day. However, you can send this payment now by changing the date to today's date

soulsaver

glitch duplicate - see below

soulsaver

10_66 wrote: »

Well after 26 days of waiting for a card to go with the reader and PIN I have already received, I've admitted defeat today and have had to cancel the "card that's on its way" for another card that's on its way :mad:

I gave up today, too.

However circumstances may be different: A young lady who seemed keen, investigated & thinks problem is to do with the fact that I have an ac from a few years ago, and UB issued the same historical customer number.

So the system 'thinks' I have an active debit card so doesn't issue an anytime reader card, which has apparently been ordered twice and failed for this reason... twice.

She's done a 'reset' and called back with a new customer ID, I'm waiting an texted activation code.

[STRIKE]She did offer a telephone based withdrawal (£10k max) prior to triggering the reset which will make my funds inaccessible for maybe 48 hours, then I can set up telephone banking while I wait for a new card & reader.

May be worth bearing in mind if it jumps the rails again.[/STRIKE] Edit see #162 - you can't.

colsten

eskbanker wrote: »

The way they word this on their helpful system effectively says it's too late to send the money tomorrow but how about today instead - you couldn't make it up!

I wonder whether they have tried to take their programmers and system designers off their drugs?

BlisteringBarnacles

Just registered on this forum. I may have had an account from years ago but couldnt recall. Well, havent used MSE forum in a really long time, so registered as new. Kind of my first post here.

Just wanted to share my experience trying to open an instant access savings account with Ulster bank. Quite a disappointing experienece so far. Here is a chronology of events ...

On 28 Jun I opened the account online. Loaded all necessary documents online including UK passport. The next day I got an email saying my passport check did not pass. I tried it again, with the same result after about a day. I called them up and they said there is a problem with the passport checking software, so I should wait a few days and try again. I did that after a few days and it seemed to go thru fine, i.e I did not get any rejection mail. In the meantime I received I letter by post dated 28 Jun saying I need to send a bunch of documents by post. I remember seeing a notice at the time of online application indicating that I might receive such a letter by post, but that I could ignore it if all documents are successfully uploaded online. So I did not act on the letter. After couple of weeks, since I did not receive any notificaton, I called them and managed to speak to someone. They said my application is still being processed since there is a long queue and it should be opened in a 'few weeks'.

On 21 July I tried calling them at the 0800 068 6719 number and I was put on hold for 45 minutes and I almost lost my cool at that point. I complained on twitter at @Ulsterbank_Help and fortunately got some responses immediately . Moral : twitter seems a better way to reach them rather than trying to phone them. They got back to me on Mon 24 Jul saying that there is a long queue but it should get opened by this week.

I understand the whole country is queueing up to open a savings account with them thanks to the 1.25% they are offering, but I never imagined it to be this slow. So far I have managed to open any bank account in the UK within a maximum of 3 to 4 days, not weeks/months. Looks like Ulster bank's execution is poor and they never thought this through before accouncing this higher interest rate.

The thing is : as per the letter I received daated 28 Jun, my application is valid for only 28 days. SO I wonder if the time period will expire and I will need to go thru the whole application process once again. If so, then I guess I will just give up. Tesco is offering 1.11% and you can get 1% as well with other banks, so it is really worth struggling so much to squeeze out an extra 0.25% ? Even in the extreme situation that we do manage to save £85000, 0.25% of it comes ro £212, and after paying 40% tax, one is only left with £127. Yes, the situation of us savers is so pathetic that in this ultra low rate environment for donkey's years, we need to struggle like this to get about a tenner a month more or just perhaps a cup of coffee for most. worth bothering ? First world problems, I know but still ...

if there are others for whom it has taken weeks and months to open a bloomin' bank account, give me a shout. Misery loves company I suppose ...