The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

MiserlyMartin

ForumUser7 said:

Coventry increasing all their variable rates, so increases on 6 access and 4 access savers. Amount TBC



Similar message at YBS

I like the way they say yes - we are increasing, then don't tell you on which accounts and when.! It should be automatic and today, as Lightyear have done today  - now 4.25% on £ cash balances. Chase Bank are passing on the 0.5% but not until July 3rd, in that waiting time they are making a tidy profit. This is exactly why at this competitive time for money, we should be moving out money around to the best one. Vote with your feet and watch them panic to up the rates as people all move

ForumUser7

MiserlyMartin said:

ForumUser7 said:

Coventry increasing all their variable rates, so increases on 6 access and 4 access savers. Amount TBC



Similar message at YBS

I like the way they say yes - we are increasing, then don't tell you on which accounts and when.! It should be automatic and today, as Lightyear have done today  - now 4.25% on £ cash balances. Chase Bank are passing on the 0.5% but not until July 3rd, in that waiting time they are making a tidy profit. This is exactly why at this competitive time for money, we should be moving out money around to the best one. Vote with your feet and watch them panic to up the rates as people all move

Coventry is doing it on all accounts, not sure with YBS yet.

Rheumatoid

MiserlyMartin said:

Rheumatoid said:

TiVo_Lad said:

There was market talk this morning that going for 0.5% was validation that the BoE had lost control. They could have gone for 0.25% now and strongly hinted that there was another 0.25% to come at the next meeting, but perhaps they felt that stamping harder would have a bigger effect. It's really going to hurt those coming off a fixed mortgage or are on a tracker or SVR.

Makes you wonder if this dodgy govt got at members indirectly to try and meet their pledge to halve inflation in the stated timeframe - or am I just a cynic?

Cynic yes. They won't get inflation down by having rates at 5%. If you look back to any high inflation period in the past, inflation was only brought down by having positive real rates. With RPI at 10% they need to be above that. That's what the government did in the 70s, now we have a MPC to do this. They've been on zero 'emergency low interest rates' and printed money for the past 15 years instead of the year or two of the emergency. Now they have a big problem. In the 70s they had not printed money and still had a big job to get inflation down. What is laughable are the 2 doves on the MPC, saying that the last rises have not fed through yet, yes the rises that they didn't vote for .Think how terrible it would be with rates still at 0.5% as they wanted

But I think if they had gone higher people would certainly smell a rat 

MiserlyMartin

What rat? Better to try and get some credibility back and show they are serious about tackling inflation. Really though, they actually want about 5% inflation. Inflation is the invisible tax that government put on us all, so they can erode away their government debt and savers especially will pay for.

Rheumatoid

MiserlyMartin said:

What rat? Better to try and get some credibility back and show they are serious about tackling inflation. Really though, they actually want about 5% inflation. Inflation is the invisible tax that government put on us all, so they can erode away their government debt and savers especially will pay for.

Rat = Govt intervention to meet inflation target

alrk

pecunianonolet said:

cwep2 said:

pecunianonolet said:

Zopa_Trooper said:

Kroo current account up to 4.1% from 1st July.

Interesting, they claim 4.1% AER and 4.03% Gross. The Skipton tracker issue 3 claims also 4.1% AER but 4.02% Gross. Both pay monthly interest. 

Based on this calculator the rate should be either be 4.03% Gross/4.11% AER or 4.02% Gross/ 4.09 AER

With 80k over 30 days it makes a difference of 0.34 pence and across a couple of million in their portfolios....

Both can be correct.

Often the banks will calculate and pay rates with one "round" rate (where everything after 2 decimal places is a 0) and the other rate may be rounded (where the bits after 2 decimal places are not zero). All rates are reported to 2 decimal places.

e.g. If they wanted to pay *exactly* 4.1000% AER then the monthly rate would be 4.0249% (to 4 decimal places) which rounds down to 4.02% to 2 decimal places. So they may pay 4.0249% monthly which is reported as 4.02% monthly (because 4.03% is not correct and fraudulent) but this still equates to 4.10% AER.
If they calculate/pay all their rates based on a 2 decimal place interest rate than 4.0200% would equate to 4.0949% AER which would have to be rounded to 4.09% when reported to the standard 2 decimal places.

So in this case Skipton is paying more than 4.0200% (but not >=4.0250%) but when they round it to 2 decimal places it is 4.02%.

Interesting that in case of 4.0249 they just ignore the last bit. 9 rounds up so 4 rounds to 5, and 5 rounds up so 4.03 but maybe just wishful thinking and effects are minimal anyhow. I have by far not enough cash in accounts that it would actually give me sleepless nights 

That isnt how rounding works - you only round once, so 4.024 rounds to 4.02 (and the 9 gets ignored)
if you think about it 4.0249 is closer to 4.02 than it is to 4.03 (although only just)

(sorry, pedantic maths teacher lol)

mamoulian666

So Principality is top again, at 4.15%, but the last few weeks shows that they won't update fast enough to keep at the top. Their max 2 withdrawals per calendar year puts me off using it if I'm likely to want to switch out again in less than a month.

Closure counts as the second withdrawal, and if it's not the leading rate I'm happy to close it, but:

- interest is calculated daily but paid yearly, in January. The T&Cs say that if you close the account you won't lose interest but doesn't state how it will be paid if your account is closed - anyone know?

- if the account is closed can a new Online Double Access be opened?

ForumUser7

mamoulian666 said:

So Principality is top again, at 4.15%, but the last few weeks shows that they won't update fast enough to keep at the top. Their max 2 withdrawals per calendar year puts me off using it if I'm likely to want to switch out again in less than a month.

Closure counts as the second withdrawal, and if it's not the leading rate I'm happy to close it, but:

- interest is calculated daily but paid yearly, in January. The T&Cs say that if you close the account you won't lose interest but doesn't state how it will be paid if your account is closed - anyone know?

- if the account is closed can a new Online Double Access be opened?

1. When you request closure, interest will be paid into the account then the account will be closed I believe, so balance with interest is paid out. This is how it worked when I closed a Regular Saver Bond early
2. No clue - I see no reason why not, but worth asking them

cosh25

Atom bank instant saver up to 3.95% as of this morning.

was expecting more from them, but plenty to chose from at the moment!

dwsjarcmcd

cosh25 said:

Atom bank instant saver up to 3.95% as of this morning.

was expecting more from them, but plenty to chose from at the moment!

To be fair, I'm quite pleased with this given they didn't pass on any of the last rate increase.  I would have moved had they only increased to 3.5%, which is what I expected from their previous history but now I'll probably stay.