The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

EthicsGradient

3.51% is not as good as Shawbrook's 3.6%, let alone Chip's 3.71%. It's just an encouraging sign that rates are still going up, rather than something for people to leap at.

OceanSound

Futuristic said:

Band7 said:

Futuristic said:

Minty33 said:

Investec Online Flexi Saver 3.51%. min £5000

Looks good, feel like many will increase ahead of the next meeting so I might just hold out 2 weeks. 

What would you hold out for? It's an instant access account with unlimited deposits and withdrawals

Signing up to yet another bank, having to move in and out large sums of money all over again and facing bank reviews. 

Please explain the review process, on how many occasions in the last year did you face reviews and by which bank/building society/credit union/financial institution. Please include the sums involved too.

allegro120 said:

Futuristic said:

Band7 said:

Futuristic said:

Minty33 said:

Investec Online Flexi Saver 3.51%. min £5000

Looks good, feel like many will increase ahead of the next meeting so I might just hold out 2 weeks. 

What would you hold out for? It's an instant access account with unlimited deposits and withdrawals

Signing up to yet another bank, having to move in and out large sums of money all over again and facing bank reviews. 

I know what you mean. It happened several times to me when I opened an account, moved funds there and in a couple of hours there was a better deal from somewhere else. Having long conversations with fraud departments is also annoying especially if they call at a very inconvenient time.  Sometimes I prefer to compromise on efficiency in favour of convenience.

How long did these calls last?

Can we ask them to call back later at a more convenient time? DOes the money still earn interest while it's waiting to be transferred out/in?

ircE

Happy Early May Day everyone...

@soulsaver

soulsaver said:

Note Oddballs: Swansea BS 3.25% wef 01/02 see trail 03/01. 

 2 Aldermore Iss 1 Double Access 3.55% (21/04)  Double Access Account, Instant Access Savings Account - Aldermore Bank thnx @TiVo_Lad

3 Investec 3.51% £5k min (01/05) https://savings.investec.com/online-flexi-saver thnx @Minty33 & @ColdIron

3 Tandem App Only 3.50% inc 0.35 top up rate (04/04)    https://www.tandem.co.uk/products/savings

8 Kent Reliance BS EA iss 56 £1k min 3.37% (14/04) Easy access savings account | Kent Reliance

Newbury BS: Welcome to NBS 3.3%; EMA 3.5%. Max £3k & £4k respectively (20/03) Savings products | Newbury  thnx @ircE

Swansea BS is no longer ToTP rate.

As far as I can tell, Aldermore's Double Access Account has a minimum £1k deposit.

There are 2 accounts in the #3 spot.

Kent Reliance is not a BS.

Newbury BS' Welcome account no longer a ToTP rate.

My Community Finance's Easy Access offers 3.56% only on balances above £20k.

allegro120

OceanSound said:

Futuristic said:

Band7 said:

Futuristic said:

Minty33 said:

Investec Online Flexi Saver 3.51%. min £5000

Looks good, feel like many will increase ahead of the next meeting so I might just hold out 2 weeks. 

What would you hold out for? It's an instant access account with unlimited deposits and withdrawals

Signing up to yet another bank, having to move in and out large sums of money all over again and facing bank reviews. 

Please explain the review process, on how many occasions in the last year did you face reviews and by which bank/building society/credit union/financial institution. Please include the sums involved too.

allegro120 said:

Futuristic said:

Band7 said:

Futuristic said:

Minty33 said:

Investec Online Flexi Saver 3.51%. min £5000

Looks good, feel like many will increase ahead of the next meeting so I might just hold out 2 weeks. 

What would you hold out for? It's an instant access account with unlimited deposits and withdrawals

Signing up to yet another bank, having to move in and out large sums of money all over again and facing bank reviews. 

I know what you mean. It happened several times to me when I opened an account, moved funds there and in a couple of hours there was a better deal from somewhere else. Having long conversations with fraud departments is also annoying especially if they call at a very inconvenient time.  Sometimes I prefer to compromise on efficiency in favour of convenience.

How long did these calls last?

Can we ask them to call back later at a more convenient time? DOes the money still earn interest while it's waiting to be transferred out/in?

They last about 20-40 minutes.  I've never asked them to call back, just dealt with it to get it done and dusted. 
Every time they called me the issue was resolved at the end of the call so I never lost any interest. 

OceanSound

allegro120 said:

OceanSound said:

Futuristic said:

Band7 said:

Futuristic said:

Minty33 said:

Investec Online Flexi Saver 3.51%. min £5000

Looks good, feel like many will increase ahead of the next meeting so I might just hold out 2 weeks. 

What would you hold out for? It's an instant access account with unlimited deposits and withdrawals

Signing up to yet another bank, having to move in and out large sums of money all over again and facing bank reviews. 

Please explain the review process, on how many occasions in the last year did you face reviews and by which bank/building society/credit union/financial institution. Please include the sums involved too.

allegro120 said:

Futuristic said:

Band7 said:

Futuristic said:

Minty33 said:

Investec Online Flexi Saver 3.51%. min £5000

Looks good, feel like many will increase ahead of the next meeting so I might just hold out 2 weeks. 

What would you hold out for? It's an instant access account with unlimited deposits and withdrawals

Signing up to yet another bank, having to move in and out large sums of money all over again and facing bank reviews. 

I know what you mean. It happened several times to me when I opened an account, moved funds there and in a couple of hours there was a better deal from somewhere else. Having long conversations with fraud departments is also annoying especially if they call at a very inconvenient time.  Sometimes I prefer to compromise on efficiency in favour of convenience.

How long did these calls last?

Can we ask them to call back later at a more convenient time? DOes the money still earn interest while it's waiting to be transferred out/in?

They last about 20-40 minutes.  I've never asked them to call back, just dealt with it to get it done and dusted. 
Every time they called me the issue was resolved at the end of the call so I never lost any interest. 

How many times in ....say the last 6 months?

OceanSound

TiVo_Lad said:

OceanSound said:

wmb194 said:

worriednoob said:

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? 

Chip isn't a bank, it's an intermediary. IIRC deposits are held with ClearBank. If Chip goes '!!!!!!' it shouldn't be a problem, the biggest danger is probably that you might lose access for a week or two whilst the returning of deposits is being sorted out.

Can you expand on the highlighted please?

I keep hearing this 'x is not a bank'. Is what you say in the highlighted bit what makes it different from a bank?
Plus of course, not having 'direct' FSCS protection, but through ClearBank.

Is the additional time frame to return deposits the ONLY factor that is different to a bank (or building society) offering 'direct' FSCS protection on an account. e.g. HSBC, Natwest, Lloyds, Santander, Nationwide?

ClearBank are a Bank. They are no different in terms of FSCS cover than the others that you mention. The delay is the time it takes for the FSCS protection to kick in. If any financial institution that's covered by the FSCS scheme fails, you may not have access to your money for a short period while the scheme refunds your deposits.

Money that you deposit via CHIP is held by ClearBank who are directly FSCS protected.

The_Green_Hornet said:

worriednoob said:

OceanSound said:

TiVo_Lad said:

OceanSound said:

wmb194 said:

worriednoob said:

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? 

Chip isn't a bank, it's an intermediary. IIRC deposits are held with ClearBank. If Chip goes '!!!!!!' it shouldn't be a problem, the biggest danger is probably that you might lose access for a week or two whilst the returning of deposits is being sorted out.

Can you expand on the highlighted please?

I keep hearing this 'x is not a bank'. Is what you say in the highlighted bit what makes it different from a bank?
Plus of course, not having 'direct' FSCS protection, but through ClearBank.

Is the additional time frame to return deposits the ONLY factor that is different to a bank (or building society) offering 'direct' FSCS protection on an account. e.g. HSBC, Natwest, Lloyds, Santander, Nationwide?

ClearBank are a Bank. They are no different in terms of FSCS cover than the others that you mention. The delay is the time it takes for the FSCS protection to kick in. If any financial institution that's covered by the FSCS scheme fails, you may not have access to your money for a short period while the scheme refunds your deposits.

Money that you deposit via CHIP is held by ClearBank who are directly FSCS protected.

So the delay to do with returning deposits applies to all financial institutions covered by FSCS. From the post I was replying to it seemed there would be an extended delay if chip goes under because in the case of Chip the FSCS isn't applied directly. I.e. it kicks in through ClearBank.

Thank you for clarifying 

So just for my understanding, let's say god-forbid that Chip/Clearbank went bust today - When you say there is a short period of delay for FSCS to refund, how long are we talking about? Days? Weeks? Months?  Also where is this information mentioned?

Thanks

How long will it take?

FSCS aims to pay compensation within 7 days of a bank or building society failing. More complex cases will take longer.

https://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/banks-building-societies/

Actually, the delay that they were talking about is not the delay you (The_Green_Hornet and TiVo_Lad) state. They were getting the delay applicable to 'safeguarding' (which only applies to Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs) and Authorised Payment Institutions (APIs) mixed up with any 'delay' associated refunding deposits for FSCS (which would be much quicker)).

That 'safeguarding' wouldn't apply here, because the eligible accounts we hold at Chip will have FSCS protection through ClearBank Bank (which is a bank - therefore has FSCS protection). 

Chip is listed as an API on the FCA register, so the 'safeguarding' would apply to non-eligible FSCS accounts held at Chip

https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=0010X00004VrUlpQAF

You can see more about safeguarding here: 

https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/using-payment-service-providers

How safeguarding works 

To safeguard properly, EMIs and APIs must either put your money in a separate safeguarding account with a bank, or protect it with an insurance policy or similar guarantee.

This means that, if they go out of business, you should get most of your money back. But it may take some time to receive, and it may not be the full amount, as some costs could be taken by the administrator or liquidator of the firm.

Long story short, if you want to hold an account at Chip AND you want FSCS protection confirm that Chip will hold your money at a Bank such as ClearBank. i.e. the account you open with Chip is an FSCS eligible account.

Expotter

Regarding Shawbrook Bank and their new Easy Access account, does anyone know if they accept a £1 test deposit or do I have to send their £1000 minimum deposit in one go?

AmityNeon

Expotter said:

Regarding Shawbrook Bank and their new Easy Access account, does anyone know if they accept a £1 test deposit or do I have to send their £1000 minimum deposit in one go?

£1 is fine. You don't need to reach the minimum balance to open the account, only you won't earn interest at the headline rate.

ranciduk

Expotter said:

Regarding Shawbrook Bank and their new Easy Access account, does anyone know if they accept a £1 test deposit or do I have to send their £1000 minimum deposit in one go?

Yes but bare in mind you can only make withdrawals of £500 at a time 

so you won’t be able to do a test of moving the £1 back again !

cwep2

OceanSound said:

allegro120 said:

OceanSound said:

 Please explain the review process, on how many occasions in the last year did you face reviews and by which bank/building society/credit union/financial institution. Please include the sums involved too.

 How long did these calls last?

Can we ask them to call back later at a more convenient time? DOes the money still earn interest while it's waiting to be transferred out/in?

They last about 20-40 minutes.  I've never asked them to call back, just dealt with it to get it done and dusted. 
Every time they called me the issue was resolved at the end of the call so I never lost any interest. 

How many times in ....say the last 6 months?

I have banked with Santander for ~10yrs as my main account and have savings accounts with around 25 other banks. I have used notice accounts, fixes and instant access, some via 'market places' like raisin. I will move money around to get the best rate, frequently transferring 5 figure sums many times in the same month. I also manage it by spreading around under the FSCS limit and taking advantage of higher rates in a spread of notice and fixes maturing regularly. This pattern has been going on for *years* (e.g. 5 figure sums moving in/out of my current account).

I tend to get my account frozen by Santander about 5-8 times a year, once in 2022 it was 3 times in a month - they obviously had changed their fraud triggers. This has happened even on payment instructions I had set up for over 12 months and made 5+ payments to already, not just 'new' payment instructions.

It's a pain and requires around 30 mins on the phone plus maybe 10-20mins waiting time, mostly them reading out a script of things they have to ask. Until you speak to them, your payment (and online access) is blocked, so if you move money from an easy access account earning 3.3% > current account and then try to move to another earning 3.5%, if it is blocked then unless you get it done the same day you will lose a day's interest or a weekend if you are doing it on a Friday.

Sometimes I'm busy and can't take 30+minutes out of my day to sort it out, but 95+% of the time payments go through fine.

Personally I don't move money for less than 0.1% uplift, and at times when banks are all raising rates frequently, if you move it out one day, the old bank may up the rate a couple of days later, and you move it back, now it's doesn't take much time, but each transfer with 2FA takes a few minutes, and even 0.2% on £20k is like 11p a day. So right now with a Bank of England hike expected next week I'd expect almost all the usual suspects that are in the top 10 easy access charts that haven't raised rates in the last 2-3 weeks to do so in the next two weeks so I am probably going to be a bit less trigger happy in moving to chase a rate, but if the existing account has just raised and is still not good then I would still move (for >0.1%) as the prospects of them doing so again in the next couple of weeks is very low.