Santander 123 still a good saving option?

surreysaver

And if you're going to pay tax on your interest, the effective rate will be less than 1.2%. I earn about £13 per month in cashback (I pay extra into my Santander offset mortgage to earn the maximum cashback on that). I'm thinking about Liteing my 123, but will need to keep a minimum balance in it earning zero imterest if I do. It will certainly be worth Liteing it if the BoE base rate goes up 0.5%, or more, as I will need to make use of my offset tracker mortgage

veryintrigued

There are better regular savers out there but having a Santander CA at least gives access to theirs.

Others have said you need not pay a S.O. from a Santander RS but am blowed if I know how!

matty17r

Santander also has the regular saver at 5pc. So how does this compare when factoring this in with the easy access paying 1.3 pc?

veryintrigued

matty17r wrote: »

Santander also has the regular saver at 5pc. So how does this compare when factoring this in with the easy access paying 1.3 pc?

Or for most 2.5%....

ColdIron

matty17r wrote: »

Santander also has the regular saver at 5pc. So how does this compare when factoring this in with the easy access paying 1.3 pc?

You can get the regular eSaver and cashback with a 123 Lite

EachPenny

ColdIron wrote: »

You can get the regular eSaver and cashback with a 123 Lite

It also appears you can get the 5% RS if you hold a 123 Credit Card (if you still have one )

Alexland

We are keeping our Joint 123 as the cashback on the mortgage and bills alone makes an overall profit of around £5 per month. The interest and access to two Santander regular savers (we already do HSBC and Nationwide regular savers) are now just extra bonuses.

msallen

I "Lited" mine when it changed. I still get access to the regular saver and about £9 cashback pm (I have an old A&L mortgage), and still consider it my "real" main account as its my oldest, I just don't keep much spare cash in there any more - transferring over from my Lloyds when I need to top it up. My Lloyds is now used as my 2% overflow account to put maturing reg savers etc in. Anything that won't fit in the 3% accounts or numerous regular savers is invested. (Some of the investment is in p2p so I could get my hands on more cash pretty quickly if I needed to)

chucknorris

What is everyone's overall portfolio strategy with these types of accounts, as a higher rate tax payer the Santander 1.5% is only worth 0.9% net to me (I've already used up my £500 tax free savings elsewhere). With inflation being around 3%, that means that this account would not be a 'savings' account as it would lose me 2.1% per annum.

Alexland

Yup it makes no real sense keeping the 123 as just a savings account anymore. Still as a day to day joint bank account for those of us with occasional high balances it still works if we get cashback on bills and mortgage payments and access to regular savers.