ISA rate cut today - how to move

linkliter

Plus wrote: »

To be fair, there's an interest rate decision every month. Should they never change rates because next month they might go up? After all, they have no hard information on what the Monetary Policy Committee will do until it happens (just like you or I).

If they had been hanging on waiting for a rise, they would have been waiting over 10 years...

That could have been a fair point most months but an increase was forecast to happen this time.

And what's the excuse for such a large drop to only 0.51%?

AirlieBird

Plus wrote: »

To be fair, there's an interest rate decision every month.

To be pedantic, the MPC now only meet 8 times a year. They no longer meet in January, April, July or October.

Mr_K

brummierebel wrote: »

Before you all rush to switch your ISA have you considered the following?

Two days after your interest rate drops the Bank of England are meeting and are likely to raise interest rates.

Those rushing to switch their ISA to a fixed rate before their interest rate drops are potentially locking in their money to a lower rate than may be available after November 2nd.

Virgin inherited a lot of savvy savers when they took over nationalised Northern Rock. They may be using psychology to lock you into a lower rate before rates rise.

It's interesting that Virgin Money have the highest one year fixed rate on the link provided above. Have they factored in the rate increase, or will they nudge it up further after a rate increase?

An alternative strategy would therefore be spend two days on the 0.5% rate and see what happens on 2nd November. You will have more options available than locking your money away for at least a year although you may potentially lose these 'limited time' Virgin Money ISAs.

Without access the commercially sensitive information, as a saver, it is very difficult to know how to navigate this.

So much for that theory ! Virgin have dropped the rate of their 1 year fixed rate ISA from 1.5 to 1.35% (after the rate rise !)

HUMBUG

Mr_K wrote: »

So much for that theory ! Virgin have dropped the rate of their 1 year fixed rate ISA from 1.5 to 1.35% (after the rate rise !)

Yes, strange that they've timed the rate cut so that it coincides with the maturity date of 1000's of Halifax 2yr fixed cash ISA's (I think that was the 10th November) . So my parents application form to transfer to Virgin was sent on the 8th November so I'm expecting them to return the application stating that they withdrew the offer before the Halifax maturity date. Anyhow might be best to just wait for the rates to increase (I hope).

HUMBUG

I just had a webchat with Virgin and they say it's all about date of receipt of the application and the opening of the account (even £0 balance). It doesn't matter about the date that the other bank's ISA is maturing.