The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

europa

searching4bestrates said:

friolento said:

searching4bestrates said:

financialbliss said:

Santander limited edition easy access - 5.20% (for 12 months)...

https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/savings-and-investments/savings/easy-access-saver

Only available until 17th September, or sooner if it sells out.

Great rate!

However, after my last experience with Santander (when they launched their market leading (at the time)) I won't be opening an account with them this time.

It is all very well it being described as "easy access", but my experience of trying to withdraw my money (back into the same current account that funded the savings account) resulted in hours of repeated phone calls when Santander consistently locked and blocked access to the savings account. One time, I was on hold for 40 minutes waiting to speak to an "advisor" only to then be connected and immediately cut off by them. The old adage "time is money" is critical for me here.

I hope that ~12 months on that Santander have improved their systems for those who do partake in this undoubtedly great, marketing leading rate!

I have been a Santander customer for over a decade and I can cope with their occasional, annoying, blocking of payments.

If you are new to Santander, and/or have no other accounts with them, I agree, it might not be the best place for savings that you want to regularly shift larger sums about. You might be better served at the likes of Chip or Tandem - though you can always be caught by random fraud checks.

I agree. I suspect their overzealous blocking of payments is far worse for "new" unknown entities (such as I was!) and your cautionary note is, I feel, very important to those who like me are "unknown" to Santander and may be tempted by their leading 5.2% rate!

As you say, if you've banked with them for years and have a long history of transactions with them, their blocking activities would hopefully be less severe/often.

Fully appreciate that other banks may also have random fraud check issues, but to date, I've moved savings around several providers and only became really inconvenienced/blocked by Santander.

I've since also learnt not to put all my "eggs" into a single "easy access" account in case the "easy access" proves not to be that easy and I suppose I have Santander to thank for that!

To be fair to Santander, i move money thru my 123 like nobody's business, and not a single transaction has been blocked in years.However, it wasn't like that around seven-eight years ago when their blocks used to drive me nuts !

flobbalobbalob

2010 said:

flobbalobbalob said:

2010 said:

Paid a small amount this morning after opening, to test from my (nominated) account.
Payment went through straightaway and showed in Santander almost immediately.

Just went on the app and it`s showing as pending (don`t know why as the payment is there), so assume it will clear overnight.
Also because it is "pending" I`m unable to set up a payment back to my (nominated) account.
Will try again in the morning.

I put £1 in and back out leaving £0 within 5 mins to test it. 

Just had another look at the account.
The money I transferred this morning on opening is showing but says "pending".
If I try to select the account to make a payment, it says account unavailable.

Sounds like an ID check ? Did you get 2 emails - I received one to welcome me and another to say my account is now open.

Bigwheels1111

Cleared out Chip & Tandem.

Welcome Santander, 30 seconds from sending to showing in my account.

Not to bad.

2010

flobbalobbalob said:

2010 said:

flobbalobbalob said:

2010 said:

Paid a small amount this morning after opening, to test from my (nominated) account.
Payment went through straightaway and showed in Santander almost immediately.

Just went on the app and it`s showing as pending (don`t know why as the payment is there), so assume it will clear overnight.
Also because it is "pending" I`m unable to set up a payment back to my (nominated) account.
Will try again in the morning.

I put £1 in and back out leaving £0 within 5 mins to test it. 

Just had another look at the account.
The money I transferred this morning on opening is showing but says "pending".
If I try to select the account to make a payment, it says account unavailable.

Sounds like an ID check ? Did you get 2 emails - I received one to welcome me and another to say my account is now open.

Yes two emails received.
Was already a Santander customer, so I used online and mobile and was able to login online and open the account this morning.
I would imagine the account will update overnight and the pending will disappear.

london21

Same moved all my money from Chip and Tandem and opening the Santander account was easy.

Putting large amounts in was easy as the withdraw went to another Snatander account.

Closed my Barclays rainy saver account. 

Silverbullet036

So I guess we all close the previous issue saver now with Santander ? No point having that one now , do we send them a secure message to close it ?

martinm1

europa said:

searching4bestrates said:

friolento said:

searching4bestrates said:

financialbliss said:

Santander limited edition easy access - 5.20% (for 12 months)...

https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/savings-and-investments/savings/easy-access-saver

Only available until 17th September, or sooner if it sells out.

Great rate!

However, after my last experience with Santander (when they launched their market leading (at the time)) I won't be opening an account with them this time.

It is all very well it being described as "easy access", but my experience of trying to withdraw my money (back into the same current account that funded the savings account) resulted in hours of repeated phone calls when Santander consistently locked and blocked access to the savings account. One time, I was on hold for 40 minutes waiting to speak to an "advisor" only to then be connected and immediately cut off by them. The old adage "time is money" is critical for me here.

I hope that ~12 months on that Santander have improved their systems for those who do partake in this undoubtedly great, marketing leading rate!

I have been a Santander customer for over a decade and I can cope with their occasional, annoying, blocking of payments.

If you are new to Santander, and/or have no other accounts with them, I agree, it might not be the best place for savings that you want to regularly shift larger sums about. You might be better served at the likes of Chip or Tandem - though you can always be caught by random fraud checks.

I agree. I suspect their overzealous blocking of payments is far worse for "new" unknown entities (such as I was!) and your cautionary note is, I feel, very important to those who like me are "unknown" to Santander and may be tempted by their leading 5.2% rate!

As you say, if you've banked with them for years and have a long history of transactions with them, their blocking activities would hopefully be less severe/often.

Fully appreciate that other banks may also have random fraud check issues, but to date, I've moved savings around several providers and only became really inconvenienced/blocked by Santander.

I've since also learnt not to put all my "eggs" into a single "easy access" account in case the "easy access" proves not to be that easy and I suppose I have Santander to thank for that!

To be fair to Santander, i move money thru my 123 like nobody's business, and not a single transaction has been blocked in years.However, it wasn't like that around seven-eight years ago when their blocks used to drive me nuts !

My experience is the opposite.  Nearly everytime I opened up a new EA account and transferred money from old to nominated then to new EA the fraud department got involved! But.once the new account was funded future transfers were all ok.

ColdIron

Silverbullet036 said:

So I guess we all close the previous issue saver now with Santander ? No point having that one now , do we send them a secure message to close it ?

On the web site choose 'Help & contact us' on the right and then choose 'Close my account' for a surprisingly useful chatbot

I closed my Issue 1 and monthly saver this morning. Monthly saver gone already

Swipe

Silverbullet036 said:

So I guess we all close the previous issue saver now with Santander ? No point having that one now , do we send them a secure message to close it ?

I like to leave mine open as an audit trail in case I need to sanity check my tax return as Santander didn't produce a tax certificate for my accounts and I had to rely on the annual statements instead.

linz

Sigh.. I quite liked you Tandem, it was short but sweet, less than a month, but i'm off to Santander too.