The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

boingy

Hattie627 said:

I know we are not allowed chat on the easy access "no chat" thread, so posting question here. 

I have just noticed that Chip is now appearing in the chart list, at the top at the moment. I'm not sure when this changed, but for a good while Chip wasn't included in the list but referred to separately.

I was wondering if something has changed with the Chip t and c's, or maybe something else, to make Chip less risky and now acceptable to be included in the mainstream?

Chip are no more risky than any other FSCS-regulated provider. They just seem to attract more suspicion from some folks! 

crumpet_man

Hattie627 said:

The shine is slowly coming off the Barclays Rainy Day Saver. It has remained at 5.12% AER (paid monthly) on up to £5000 since October 2022. Other instant/easy access accounts are now quickly approaching this rate.

I'm wondering if Barclays are going to let its RDS wither on the vine. It's long overdue an interest rate uplift to keep the shine on it.

It's a palaver keeping the Blue Rewards thing going (2 monthly direct debits from Barclays current account just to earn the £5 reward to offset the monthly account fee of £5) to earn the privilege of having the RDS. Fine when the RDS offered a well-above-average rate, not so fine now.

If you setup an easy DD such as plum or moneybox then there is very little admin involved for blue rewards.  

cwep2

boingy said:

Chip are no more risky than any other FSCS-regulated provider. They just seem to attract more suspicion from some folks! 

There's some slight risks, the fact they are not covered in their own right means in theory if you deposit with them, and they go bust before they have deposited with Clearbank you may not be able to recover it - e.g. at a weekend or bank holiday it's a potential (very small) risk, or deposit via DD that has left your bank but not cleared.
They pay interest on the 4th business day of the new month, for the previous month, so there is 4-7 days where you aren't earning interest on the interest. This isn't a risk, but an annoyance!

Personally I don't see many issues, but there is a layer of risk that isn't there when you deposit in a savings account with an FSCS covered bank. I find delays in payments or limits to the number or amount of withdrawals to be more onerous.

They used to pay interest in an even more strange way, but that is now not happening, and to some extent when it did it justified some of the caveats that left it out of the main best buy lists. I don't really see a reason to leave it out now, but people may simply not trust them because they are not FSCS covered directly.

masonic

Hattie627 said:

I know we are not allowed chat on the easy access "no chat" thread, so posting question here. 

I have just noticed that Chip is now appearing in the chart list, at the top at the moment. I'm not sure when this changed, but for a good while Chip wasn't included in the list but referred to separately.

I was wondering if something has changed with the Chip t and c's, or maybe something else, to make Chip less risky and now acceptable to be included in the mainstream?

Probably out of an abundance of caution, but since they moved to using ClearBank late last year they have been on a level footing with other providers in terms of risk, and there was just a remaining point of contention over interest calculations, which have been a sticking point for some, but seem to have no material impact beyond the odd penny here and there.

masonic

cwep2 said:

boingy said:

Chip are no more risky than any other FSCS-regulated provider. They just seem to attract more suspicion from some folks! 

There's some slight risks, the fact they are not covered in their own right means in theory if you deposit with them, and they go bust before they have deposited with Clearbank you may not be able to recover it - e.g. at a weekend or bank holiday it's a potential (very small) risk, or deposit via DD that has left your bank but not cleared.

Firstly you should never send money directly to Chip, only to their ClearBank holding account. The situation regarding money in the holding account is also true of many other savings accounts. Any provider where deposits are sent to a holding account and then applied to your savings account using a provided reference. Until it is allocated to your personal account, it is subject to CASS ringfencing. In the case of Chip, when using Open Banking or Faster Payments, the money is sent to a Clearbank account and allocated in seconds when the correct reference is used (rather quicker than some other providers). The situation is less clear for debit card deposits, but these should be avoided due to the 2+ day interest void period.

flobbalobbalob

13zero8 said:

It's a slow afternoon so I decided to count how many easy access savings accounts I have......

26 at the moment. 

Out of interest, how many do you lot have?

I try to close ones that I obviously won't use anymore as the rates are stupidly low. But even doing that I'm still left with loads, most with about in a quid in them, with rates around the low 4s.

I received a letter from HMRC asking for details of all my savings accounts for the previous tax year. Good luck if you get one 😁

Bridlington1

@soulsaver
HTB Online EA account Issue 12 now pays 4.4%.

ForumUser7

Cambridge BS Your Saver to 4.15% effective 21st July. Not TOTP, but handy to know for existing account holders.

simonsmithsays

ForumUser7 said:

Cambridge BS Your Saver to 4.15% effective 21st July. Not TOTP, but handy to know for existing account holders.

Thanks for this

Off thread but where have you seen this as I have other Cambridge accounts I'd be interested to see if they're changing 

Bridlington1

simonsmithsays said:

ForumUser7 said:

Cambridge BS Your Saver to 4.15% effective 21st July. Not TOTP, but handy to know for existing account holders.

Thanks for this

Off thread but where have you seen this as I have other Cambridge accounts I'd be interested to see if they're changing 

It's on moneyfacts.