The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

worriednoob

Band7 said:

worriednoob said:

 But my main concern was whether there is a higher risk to linking accounts, such as passwords being hacked or somehow someone can obtain your security details.

I am no more worried about CHIP having access to my data [via Truelayer, an authorised OB service] than my data being hacked at one of the dozens of banks I have accounts with. In fact, Truelayer are probably using more modern technology to protect my data than many of the log established banks do. If you want the details, you can find them in the Truelayer Data Privacy Policy. 

worriednoob said:

 
One other question I want to ask those who use Chip - Being an app-only bank, is it safe to place large savings into Chip?  When it comes to withdrawing/transferring large savings from Chip to another bank, have you have any issues, such as Chip blocking you or limiting you?

I have made dozens of withdrawals from CHIP in the last 5 months. The largest one £45k. All of them arrived instantly, without fail. I haven't made withdrawals in the middle of the night, but it seems the app is available 24x7, and it's always worked when I wanted to use it.

I was one of the ones who were asked for the source of my money after my accrued deposits into CHIP went over £100k (mainly because I kept shifting money between CHIP and Tandem. I don't have more than £85k in CHIP, or anywhere). This can obviously happen to everybody but is not an issue unless you have something to hide. My CHIP account was never blocked.

There is obviously a single point of failure if the CHIP app became unavailable for any reason. Again, this is not much different to your bank's systems becoming unavailable - as we have seen in the case of TSB and the Natwest group. To mitigate that risk, it's a good idea not to commit 100% of your funds to any single place. For example, you could keep a few £K in a high-interest Regular Saver which allows penalty-free withdrawals, and only keep in CHIP what you need regular or very short term access to. 

Thanks very much Band7 for the detailed explanation.  With what you've said, I'm more than happy to leave the open banking with CHIP and my current account.  The chances of me needing the savings are pretty slim, so happy to wait a few days if need be to receive my funds.

When you mentioned about source of funds, what would they usually ask for?  Reason I'm asking is because I've moved my money through so many different current/savings accounts (to gain best interest rate), that I've lost count of it.

VNX

t1redmonkey said:

patpalloon said:

With all these rate increases - do you think these institutions are anticipating another BoE hike on 11th May?

My understanding is that a 0.25% increase in May is almost a certainty.

Yes this and the April inflation rate which I believe we will know around 25/5 could be key to any moves in the rates of bonds.

Band7

worriednoob said

When you mentioned about source of funds, what would they usually ask for?  Reason I'm asking is because I've moved my money through so many different current/savings accounts (to gain best interest rate), that I've lost count of it.

I don’t think they always ask the same, and people’s answers will undoubtedly vary from person to person. In my experience, thay don’t expect you to go back to the year dot. Things like bank statements or pay slips etc, and a sensible explanation seem to suffice. It was a bit of a PITA to get the request but in the end it didn’t take me long to explain it all to their satisfaction

If you search back through this thread (may be use Google Advanced Search, as the Forum search isn’t particularly useful), you can find reports from people who were asked. 

They don’t appear to be asking everybody, either.  I was picked because my accrued deposits had gone >£100k. So I explained the bleedin‘ obvious  to them with the help of my Tandem transaction list, which showed a number of deposits and withdrawals corresponding to transactions on my CHIP account. I did at the time suggest they could greatly reduce my need for shifting my money about if they provided the leading rate all the time 😂😎😂

Zaul22

The base rate is definitely going up, that's why fixes have gone up. 

allegro120

Rheumatoid said:

I'll give Zopa a week to go over 3.6 instant access or its off to Chip

I've emptied mine on 13th April, not much point having money there until they catch up with top rates. 

allegro120

t1redmonkey said:

I just noticed Barclays have paid me the interest on the Rainy Day Saver today.  Bit weird since they usually pay it on the 1st of the month; not sure if everyone's been paid or just me.  But worth logging in and checking if you're like me and usually move the interest as soon as it lands.

Yes, I got mine today.

allegro120

jaypers said:

Seems to be a lot of activity with rates this past week. What are peoples thought on what happens next? For me, I don’t like the idea of CHIP and also things about Shawbrook put me off like having to open new issues all of the time to get the latest rates etc.

I suspect Zopa will move next, closely followed by Atom. Marcus will do absolutely nothing but I also think Chase will move to 3.5% fairly soon.

I feel that the institutions are betting on interest rates about to peak. As they start to drop off again, you can guarantee that rates will reduce straight away, in line with announcements, unlike increases where we have to wait. I’m still looking at locking into a couple of 2 year fixes between now and August. Closely watching Easy Access rates and not keen on opening any more accounts. Feel this thread will be busy next week. 

It's been a lot of activity in the past 12 months... We might see increases from Zopa, Al Rayan and some other banks soon, but I suspect Chip will stay on the top of competition at least in near future.  I'm not looking at fixes yet, want to see BoE stop increasing first.  I've got 1 fixed at the moment that pays 2.33%, what a waste of funds, luckily I only went for 1 year and a relatively a small amount.  This matures on 1st June so this money will start earning a better interest soon, good job I didn't go for a longer fix.

cwep2

JGal said:

Richchad said:

SJMALBA said:

fryedslyce said:

patpalloon said:

Bear in mind if you transfer money in to shawbrook now it won't appear until Tuesday pm 

I sent a transfer just after midday and it still hasn't appeared in my account, are Shawbrook usually this slow to credit a transfer?

'Funds are credited to your account the same working day, if you send them before 3.30pm. If you send the funds after this time or not on a working day (Saturday and Sunday or English bank holiday), the funds will credit your account the following working day.'

https://help.shawbrook.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/5600608425618-How-quickly-will-the-funds-show-in-my-account-and-when-will-I-start-to-earn-interest-

I did a transfer from Santander to Shawbrook about midday and it has only just arrived at Shawbrook, so still time yet.

I did a small value test transfer from Santander to Shawbrook around 5.30pm, so after the 3.30 cut off mentioned, to see how long it took before committing to a large amount on the BH weekend. It took over two hours so didn't bother following it with another. Doing a max FSCS transfer you could lose over £30 if it's debited but not credited for four days (f, s, s, m). So my question is, where does the money sit during the intervening period of time?

It sits in a segregated client holding account - almost certainly earning zero interest. 

Wholesale banking still works on business hours. The fact you get a whole days interest if you have money in account at 10pm and withdraw it at 2am the next day is basically a loss leader, the bank itself won’t gain from having that cash for 4 hours. 

To get interest as a bank you need to effectively lend to someone else even if for a day. There are very active markets for overnight/1 day lending but they tend to shut off well before 5pm and most people are done by 3:30-4pm, they are most active in the mornings between 7-9am. 

Banks therefore need to keep cash earning zero% in holding accounts to be able to make payments at 10pm or 2am or whatever that they don’t lend out and receive interest. But the interest rates they offer to customers are lower than what they can get for the rest, which means they can still cover costs or make a profit. E.G. if they have £100mio of deposits, they keep £2-3mio in holding account to allow withdrawals after hours, and receive interest on the £97-98mio lent out**.

There’s a lot of push to move towards a more modern interest rate regime where the day is broken into smaller pieces, which in theory would allow banks to offer closer to market interest rates to clients, but it would be a huge change. Probably an evolution only realistic with digital currencies, where you build a new system from ground upwards. 

** in practise it’s a lot more complex than this, source: I worked for a large bank and managed funding for over a dozen currencies, when managing the lending or borrowing on a 1 day basis I would usually turn over several billion and anything under 10mio was a rounding error. 

worriednoob

Band7 said:

worriednoob said

When you mentioned about source of funds, what would they usually ask for?  Reason I'm asking is because I've moved my money through so many different current/savings accounts (to gain best interest rate), that I've lost count of it.

I don’t think they always ask the same, and people’s answers will undoubtedly vary from person to person. In my experience, thay don’t expect you to go back to the year dot. Things like bank statements or pay slips etc, and a sensible explanation seem to suffice. It was a bit of a PITA to get the request but in the end it didn’t take me long to explain it all to their satisfaction

If you search back through this thread (may be use Google Advanced Search, as the Forum search isn’t particularly useful), you can find reports from people who were asked. 

They don’t appear to be asking everybody, either.  I was picked because my accrued deposits had gone >£100k. So I explained the bleedin‘ obvious  to them with the help of my Tandem transaction list, which showed a number of deposits and withdrawals corresponding to transactions on my CHIP account. I did at the time suggest they could greatly reduce my need for shifting my money about if they provided the leading rate all the time 😂😎😂

Thanks for the helpful explanation Band7.  At least I know I won't have to go back many many months or years to provide the original source of funds as that's very difficult to do.  My savings are nowhere near your amounts, so hopefully they won't give me too much of a hard-time.

Just out of curiosity, do you tend to move your savings out every time a bank increases interest rates or do you just stay with the same bank?  I just think it's not worth constantly moving your savings if the interest rate difference is very small.

worriednoob

Let's leave the pronoun business to a different topic/different day  .  

As a saver, I'm extremely worried with what @wmb194 has recently posted on THIS THREAD about Chip's finances on Companies House.  The company is making colossal losses according to their full accounts (upto Dec 2022) released at end of April 2023.

Isn't this a cause for concern for other savers?  I thought as a bank, they would have been financially stress-tested to ensure that they wouldn't go bust and leave customers out of pocket?