Intelligent Finance Stealthily Cut Current Ac Interest Rates

financialstyler

IF used to pay the savings rate (currently 4.75%) on their current account if you had £1 in your savings account. That made them a fantastic current account without needing to worry about shuffling money around. They now will only pay 2.75% on the current account and 4.75% on the savings account. Apparently they removed this option on April 10th and wrote to customers in Feb/March. Do people know about this? Are people outraged? Do they feel its been stealthy (I only noticed because the amount of interest paid on my current account seemed to have fallen)? I have written a message to them about this and their reply was:

Dear Mr X

Thank you for your email.

In February and March 2005, Intelligent Finance mailed a statement
insert detailing the changes to all customers affected giving you
notice of the change. The option to gain a higher rate of interest on
your money can still be achieved by transferring funds into a savings
jar and using the Move Money facility when it is required in the
current account jar.

You can send a letter of complaint regarding this to the following
address:

Customer Relations Department
Intelligent Finance
1 Baird Road
Kirkton Campus
Livingston
Scotland
EH54 7AZ

What recourse do we have to persuade them to reconsider their option?

rchddap1

The ultimate recourse is to move your money....but that only works if all their other customers do the same thing.

grumbler

Some people knew about this in February! Unintelligent Finance..........

Also: Best Current Accounts Discussion Area ...

lswwong

Yes, I am an IF customer and knew about this earlier this year. Really disappointed with the removal of just about all their accounts' attractive features. I have now moved my current account over to A&L - it went smoothly, may be I got lucky. Anyway, have moaned to IF operators over the phone a few times about their product changes. Most of them just say it was a business decision and very sorry about that. Therefore, I don't think IF will hear any arguments from customers against changing their products.

Oh well, it is the capitalist perogative to seek better value and returns elsewhere. May be we should just call ourselves Intelligent Capitalists

zzzLazyDaisy

I have been a happy IF customer for over two years ..... but am on the move now....

thomas0506_2

Think i'll be moving now especially now they're stopping the credit cards

financialstyler

Well if it makes it any better I can tell you what I'll be trying to save the hassle of moving - will put a balance sweep on for £1 and keep moving all my money back to savings - I think my effective rate of interest will be similar to Cahoots that way but what a pain in the as*!!

Beano

Even Halifax's branch based account now tops IF's new rate.

IF's slogan used to be "The way all banks will be". Let's certainly hope not!