The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

patpalloon

I opened the Investec 90 day saver. I know it's not easy access, but if you can live with the 90 day notice period - you get 3.5% interest paid monthly. The suits me as right now I want the best regular monthly interest and can afford to keep some capital locked away for a short time. I already had a Easy Access account so opening this one was easy peasy. This seems like the best of both worlds.

patpalloon

BooJewels said:

Can I ask something that troubles me - I'm very new to moving money around (on account of never having any before) and only recently opened multiple accounts and some of my money has already done at least a full circle of some accounts.  Do you not worry about something tripping up and getting accounts frozen?  Every transaction I hold my breath worrying it will send up some red flag somewhere.

My linked account is Santander and I have had issues with them freezing my account with certain transfers. They don't seem to like Investec for instance. I always try a smaller transfer first before making a large one. And usually do it first thing in the morning so I have all day to resolve it if any issues. It saves any sleepless nights! It was a pain but it seems to have been resolved for now. I did complain and raised a bit of stink, for which I got £50 compensation 

TiVo_Lad

BooJewels said:

Can I ask something that troubles me - I'm very new to moving money around (on account of never having any before) and only recently opened multiple accounts and some of my money has already done at least a full circle of some accounts.  Do you not worry about something tripping up and getting accounts frozen?  Every transaction I hold my breath worrying it will send up some red flag somewhere.

I had issues with Tandem when they started. They belived the money moving in an out all the time was "suspicious" and froze my account. When I explained I was a rate tart it took about a week for them to unfreeze the account and then no issues since.

ranciduk

I do worry about this too 

so I only move money around in smaller chunks rather than in big single amounts 

takes longer and is a pain ,but if it prevents the bank thinking your being scammed and freezing your account - so be it

the last time I moved a large amount I ended up being interrogated over the phone for over half an hour before they let it through 

not doing that again

rallycurve

What is a small amount then? And what kind of questions do they ask to release your money in that case? I worry that sooner or later I'll get there too...

Bridlington1

BooJewels said:

Can I ask something that troubles me - I'm very new to moving money around (on account of never having any before) and only recently opened multiple accounts and some of my money has already done at least a full circle of some accounts.  Do you not worry about something tripping up and getting accounts frozen?  Every transaction I hold my breath worrying it will send up some red flag somewhere.

It depends on which account you use. I have had a Lloyds account since November 2021 and bounced a total of around £250k (about 17 times my total income for that year) through it in 2022 according to their money manager without a single fraud check or anything because it is considered to be normal account activity for me. The largest of these payments was £25k. On the flip side I bounced £15k through HSBC, which I hadn't used all that much back in January 2022 and had my account frozen for 23 days.

I've got a few accounts which I regularly bounce easy access savings through on their way to better rates without issues but if I were to send a few large payments through a lesser used account I would likely.encounter fraud checks.

In the event you do have a frozen account you can minimise the impact it has by having your easy access savings spread across a few of the top paying accounts. If you've several accounts you can effectively isolate the frozen account if needed and allow the rest of your accounts to carry on as normal.

mebu60

patpalloon said:

BooJewels said:

Can I ask something that troubles me - I'm very new to moving money around (on account of never having any before) and only recently opened multiple accounts and some of my money has already done at least a full circle of some accounts.  Do you not worry about something tripping up and getting accounts frozen?  Every transaction I hold my breath worrying it will send up some red flag somewhere.

My linked account is Santander and I have had issues with them freezing my account with certain transfers. They don't seem to like Investec for instance. I always try a smaller transfer first before making a large one. And usually do it first thing in the morning so I have all day to resolve it if any issues. It saves any sleepless nights! It was a pain but it seems to have been resolved for now. I did complain and raised a bit of stink, for which I got £50 compensation 

I'm with Santander too and have been fine with moving large funds - hopefully not jinxed myself there! Used to have issues with sending money to TransferWise before they became Wise, presumably because of the FX connection. 
Like pp I tend to do large transfers in the morning. I avoid Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 
I had a payment for £4k go through without requiring an OTP last week, that was a real shock! 

merchant_ac

Cynergy are now offering 3.11% (2.96% without the 12 month bonus).

https://www.cynergybank.co.uk/personal-savings/online-easy-access-account/online-easy-access-account/

mebu60

merchant_ac said:

Cynergy are now offering 3.11% (2.96% without the 12 month bonus).

https://www.cynergybank.co.uk/personal-savings/online-easy-access-account/online-easy-access-account/

I bailed on their 2.9% on Monday for 3.1%, even I won't be going back for 0.01%!

But I will get the 3.11% on my £1 plus accrued Issue 55 interest :-)  

I-LOV-MONEY

Cynergy, I see the interest is paid annually.  Would an account that pays monthly be better?    I presume they pay the interest if you close the account earlier than a year?