The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

uptdale

boingy said:

Stargunner said:

How are you guys unable to get a mobile signal at home? if you can’t with a particular network have you tried other networks. 

In our case it's because we live out in the sticks. We get a very variable and very weak Vodaphone signal in one corner of one bedroom and a slightly more reliable O2 signal on one corner of the kitchen (at the opposite end of the house) and that's it. Both of those signals will only do voice and text - no "G" of any type. The other networks just don't reach here. A few years ago someone tried to put up a new mast closer to us and a local campaign squashed it because we're in an area of outstanding natural beauty. The mast would not have been visible from any property and, I think, they were even going to disguise it to look more like a tree.

Yes, there are a lot more not-spots about than people realise. Our wifi is good (from a wireless ISP), but all the effort seems to go into extending fibre broadband or 5G coverage, both of which would be nice to have but not really what we need - which is mobile voice and SMS coverage. 

We're all hoping that something is done before they turn off our analogue landlines in 2025, leaving no comms at all after a power cut - well 1 hour after a power cut, which is all the battery backup that Ofcom thinks is needed!

soulsaver

ToTP Relegation w/e 18/08

Saffron (Various EA) 4.60% from £1 (01/08)  Immediate access savings accounts | Saffron Building Society (saffronbs.co.uk)

Cahoot Simple Svr 4.60% £1min (04/08) https://www.cahoot.com/products-and-services/cahoot-simple-saver 

Skipton Bonus Svr(8) 4.6% inc 1st yr bonus (14/08) Bonus Saver - Skipton Building Society

scottishstu

I note the Paragon Bank Dbl Access Iss1 at 4.75% has been unavailable for a couple of days now. Looks like it's gone. @soulsaver

Their triple access account is still available but it's not competitive enough to be in serious consideration (currently 4.55%).

BristolVR

mebu60 said:

jaypers said:

<snipped>

Charter have increased everything up to Issue 41 only. Funny that, they said they would increase all ‘no longer on sale’ accounts. 

Issue 42 is NLA, current issue is 43 @ 4.5%. I will follow up. 

And, more to the point, even at the time when Charter issued its 'Good News' email, Issue 42 was noted by soulsaver on this forum as having been withdrawn from sale  a 'few days ago'.

It's why I decided to leave my money with them, despite the fifteen day wait.

I too have noticed the lack of promised increase today, and will also be raising a query.

soulsaver

BristolVR said:

mebu60 said:

jaypers said:

<snipped>

Charter have increased everything up to Issue 41 only. Funny that, they said they would increase all ‘no longer on sale’ accounts. 

Issue 42 is NLA, current issue is 43 @ 4.5%. I will follow up. 

And, more to the point, even at the time when Charter issued its 'Good News' email, Issue 42 was noted by soulsaver on this forum as having been withdrawn from sale  a 'few days ago'.

It's why I decided to leave my money with them, despite the fifteen day wait.

I too have noticed the lack of promised increase today, and will also be raising a query.

Charter Iss 42 4.55% £5k min (27/07) was posted as NLA at 01/08 and confirmed on their webby.
The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area - Page 1580 — MoneySavingExpert Forum

Zopa_Trooper

I've often thought, you know when you go down to your local PC World (suppliers are available) to say, buy a TV and when you tell them you can get the set £25 cheaper down the road or on the internet, they often will reduce the price to match. They don't give this price to the next person who walks through the door, just you. I wonder why banks don't do this? I mean, they may have £85,000 of your money, but a rival account up their rate and you start the process to move it to them. Why doesn't the bank offer you a "personal bonus" to match the one on offer? They wouldn't have to do it for everybody, wouldn't have to advertise it and it would be far cheaper than increasing the overall rate. Just wondering. Maybe they do but I haven't got enough money stashed to make it worth their while?

inkydolphin

The banks could adapt the John Lewis strapline - "Never knowingly underinterested"

masonic

Zopa_Trooper said:

I've often thought, you know when you go down to your local PC World (suppliers are available) to say, buy a TV and when you tell them you can get the set £25 cheaper down the road or on the internet, they often will reduce the price to match. They don't give this price to the next person who walks through the door, just you. I wonder why banks don't do this? I mean, they may have £85,000 of your money, but a rival account up their rate and you start the process to move it to them. Why doesn't the bank offer you a "personal bonus" to match the one on offer? They wouldn't have to do it for everybody, wouldn't have to advertise it and it would be far cheaper than increasing the overall rate. Just wondering. Maybe they do but I haven't got enough money stashed to make it worth their while?

For a lot of the smaller players, the name of the game is showing their investors that they can grow market share, which is measured more in number of customers than volume of cash on deposit. In some cases leading rates may be offered at a loss, hence the less money deposited per customer the better. Even for the more established ones, the name of the game is usually to launch new competitive issues of an account while letting the older ones wither away - this is something the FCA is currently taking action on (probably to the detriment of those of us who actively move our cash around), so I'd expect them to take a dim view of haggling also.

Zopa_Trooper

But it does happen in other walks of life so why not banking?

Section62

uptdale said:

Catplan said:

Some mobile providers offer a widget for wifi calling and texting (at a price) and some don't (mine doesn't).  There are 40 or 50 of us in our not-spot and some of my neighbours pay for it - mostly people who travel daily outside the not spot and so use their mobiles for calling and texting a lot.  I don't and for me it's not worth the cost.  I have an app (Voxist) for getting voicemail to my mobile, but it does not work for texts.  Most banks now offer an alternative to SMS for OTPs (voice call to landline or push notification to an app) or give you a widget for 2FA.  Beehive seems to be one of the few that don't - others I know of are Principality, Oak North, Investec and Close Brothers.  Plenty of other banks and building societies available.

Nottingham's approach to online services and the nonsensical restrictions they apply are simply pants.  Existing Nottingham members cannot get online access to their accounts full stop, nor apply for a Beehive account without jumping through the same 3rd-party photo ID hoop as non-members.

As you say, there are plenty of other banks and building societies and Nottingham risk vanishing from the scene unless they get their act together on this.

If they were a one or two branch local building society then they might just cope without online services - but with a sizeable branch network to support they need to at least attempt to keep up with the competition. Ironically, in 1983 The Nottingham were at the cutting edge of 'online' banking. They appear somewhat stuck in that era.

There are signs the Board are waking up to this, but the message doesn't seem to permeate the organisation very well, and progress is painfully slow.