The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

RichTips

pecunianonolet said:

RichTips said:

allegro120 said:

simonsmithsays said:

Chorley Easy Access 

Just a reminder the interest rate dropped to 5.1% today for those with better product options.

Also "***Please note that withdrawal requests received before 3.30pm will be processed the same day and credited to your nominated bank account the next working day. Requests made after 3.30pm, on a Saturday or on a non-working day will be deemed to have been received on the following working day. This transaction will show as a cheque withdrawal***"

Has anyone had experience with requesting a cheque from Chorley and can advise how long it took or conducted internal transfers of greater than £50,000?

The issue I have is that I have around the FSCS limit of £85,000 in the 1 Withdrawal Easy Access Saver account so, given the online transfer limit of £50,000, if I were to withdraw down to the £500 threshold required to keep the account open I'd either have to A] go the cheque route and be without interest until I received and cashed the thing, or B] exceed the account's 1 withdrawal limit, halving the interest on the account accrued since the New Year. Feels like I'm losing out either way but would appreciate learning others' experiences so I can work out the lesser of two evils.

Alternatively, I was also wondering if by opening another Chorley account without withdrawal limits I can do an internal transfer of everything but £500 and move the funds away by that method, keeping the higher interest rate while opening up the ability to get the money to another institution online over two days. If anyone has seen this work, I'd love to know of it.

What about enquiring with Chorley about a CHAPS payment and if that would allow a higher transfer above the 50k counting as just one withdrawal?

There's a £25 fee for CHAPS payments and they apparently need to be done in-branch, so that would (in my case) cost about £60 in petrol. At the moment, the most fruitful prospect seems to be opening another Chorley account and sending 1 large internal transfer there but Chorley are not exactly swift when it comes to the process of opening and who knows if it'll give the option when it's done. Nevertheles, I've done an application to open the Chorlian Unlimited Withdrawals account (£1 minimum) and am now twiddling my thumbs waiting to see if it becomes the optimal escape route.

This is probably the last time I'll do a 1 Withdrawal account, to be honest. At least it's only an interest penalty rather than locking the remaining funds until the next calender year or something, I suppose. There's also nothing that I can find about what impact closure has in terms of accrued interest for Chorley, which seems an oversight on their part.

Edit: As it turns out, they even limit you to £50,000 for cheque issuance. So I could not even drop the balance to £500 and keep the higher interest rate by that means. Boooo!

BlackthornU

RichTips said:

pecunianonolet said:

RichTips said:

allegro120 said:

simonsmithsays said:

Chorley Easy Access 

Just a reminder the interest rate dropped to 5.1% today for those with better product options.

Also "***Please note that withdrawal requests received before 3.30pm will be processed the same day and credited to your nominated bank account the next working day. Requests made after 3.30pm, on a Saturday or on a non-working day will be deemed to have been received on the following working day. This transaction will show as a cheque withdrawal***"

Has anyone had experience with requesting a cheque from Chorley and can advise how long it took or conducted internal transfers of greater than £50,000?

The issue I have is that I have around the FSCS limit of £85,000 in the 1 Withdrawal Easy Access Saver account so, given the online transfer limit of £50,000, if I were to withdraw down to the £500 threshold required to keep the account open I'd either have to A] go the cheque route and be without interest until I received and cashed the thing, or B] exceed the account's 1 withdrawal limit, halving the interest on the account accrued since the New Year. Feels like I'm losing out either way but would appreciate learning others' experiences so I can work out the lesser of two evils.

Alternatively, I was also wondering if by opening another Chorley account without withdrawal limits I can do an internal transfer of everything but £500 and move the funds away by that method, keeping the higher interest rate while opening up the ability to get the money to another institution online over two days. If anyone has seen this work, I'd love to know of it.

What about enquiring with Chorley about a CHAPS payment and if that would allow a higher transfer above the 50k counting as just one withdrawal?

There's a £25 fee for CHAPS payments and they apparently need to be done in-branch, so that would (in my case) cost about £60 in petrol. At the moment, the most fruitful prospect seems to be opening another Chorley account and sending 1 large internal transfer there but Chorley are not exactly swift when it comes to the process of opening and who knows if it'll give the option when. Nevertheles, I've done an application to open the Chorlian Unlimited Withdrawals account (£1 minimum) and am now twiddling my thumbs waiting to see if it becomes the optimal escape route.

This is probably the last time I'll do a 1 Withdrawal account, to be honest. At least it's only an interest penalty rather than locking the remaining funds until the next calender year or something, I suppose. There's also nothing that I can find about what impact closure has in terms of accrued interest for Chorley, which seems an oversight on their part.

Edit: As it turns out, they even limit you to £50,000 for cheque issuance. So I could not even drop the balance to £500 and keep the higher interest rate by that means. Boooo!

Chorley will post or email you a CHAPs form for you to complete and post back to them. I used this and got my money out yesterday. As noted, there is a £25 fee so it may be better to do a transfer to the 'unlimted' account first depending on the amount. Note that online payments are deducted from the account one day and transferred to your external account the next day, so you will lose one days interest (but you won't be getting much in the basic unlimted account anyway) . The CHAPs transfer is same day.

This is probably the last time I'll do a 1 Withdrawal account, to be honest. - Agreed - partly because trying to process a one off larger amount though my 'nominated' bank First Direct turned into a mess as they delayed the forward payment until today while yesterday telling me repeatedly that the payment was going out yesterday. 

Zopa_Trooper

At least plenty of warning from Metro about the decrease in rate, doesn't take place until April. Who knows, the new rate might be near the top again, its not far of 5%. I have the 5.2% Santander so as long as that rate doesn't drop I'll stick my Metro money in there.

RichTips

BlackthornU said:

RichTips said:

pecunianonolet said:

RichTips said:

allegro120 said:

simonsmithsays said:

Chorley Easy Access 

Just a reminder the interest rate dropped to 5.1% today for those with better product options.

Also "***Please note that withdrawal requests received before 3.30pm will be processed the same day and credited to your nominated bank account the next working day. Requests made after 3.30pm, on a Saturday or on a non-working day will be deemed to have been received on the following working day. This transaction will show as a cheque withdrawal***"

Has anyone had experience with requesting a cheque from Chorley and can advise how long it took or conducted internal transfers of greater than £50,000?

The issue I have is that I have around the FSCS limit of £85,000 in the 1 Withdrawal Easy Access Saver account so, given the online transfer limit of £50,000, if I were to withdraw down to the £500 threshold required to keep the account open I'd either have to A] go the cheque route and be without interest until I received and cashed the thing, or B] exceed the account's 1 withdrawal limit, halving the interest on the account accrued since the New Year. Feels like I'm losing out either way but would appreciate learning others' experiences so I can work out the lesser of two evils.

Alternatively, I was also wondering if by opening another Chorley account without withdrawal limits I can do an internal transfer of everything but £500 and move the funds away by that method, keeping the higher interest rate while opening up the ability to get the money to another institution online over two days. If anyone has seen this work, I'd love to know of it.

What about enquiring with Chorley about a CHAPS payment and if that would allow a higher transfer above the 50k counting as just one withdrawal?

There's a £25 fee for CHAPS payments and they apparently need to be done in-branch, so that would (in my case) cost about £60 in petrol. At the moment, the most fruitful prospect seems to be opening another Chorley account and sending 1 large internal transfer there but Chorley are not exactly swift when it comes to the process of opening and who knows if it'll give the option when. Nevertheles, I've done an application to open the Chorlian Unlimited Withdrawals account (£1 minimum) and am now twiddling my thumbs waiting to see if it becomes the optimal escape route.

This is probably the last time I'll do a 1 Withdrawal account, to be honest. At least it's only an interest penalty rather than locking the remaining funds until the next calender year or something, I suppose. There's also nothing that I can find about what impact closure has in terms of accrued interest for Chorley, which seems an oversight on their part.

Edit: As it turns out, they even limit you to £50,000 for cheque issuance. So I could not even drop the balance to £500 and keep the higher interest rate by that means. Boooo!

Chorley will post or email you a CHAPs form for you to complete and post back to them. I used this and got my money out yesterday. As noted, there is a £25 fee so it may be better to do a transfer to the 'unlimted' account first depending on the amount. Note that online payments are deducted from the account one day and transferred to your external account the next day, so you will lose one days interest (but you won't be getting much in the basic unlimted account anyway) . The CHAPs transfer is same day.

This is probably the last time I'll do a 1 Withdrawal account, to be honest. - Agreed - partly because trying to process a one off larger amount though my 'nominated' bank First Direct turned into a mess as they delayed the forward payment until today while yesterday telling me repeatedly that the payment was going out yesterday. 

I've been told through Chorley Online that, for this account account at least, CHAPS payments "can only be done in branch". What's more, on opening the 'unlimited' account it is evident that this can also only accept a single transfer of up to £50,000. It seems to me, in essence, that this account really makes a mockery of the term "easy access" in its name.

Last avenue I'll go down is seeing the impact on accumulated interest of closing the account down entirely. Wouldn't be surprised is they only permit this to be done when accepting a cheque in the mail though..

gwapenut

If this is the last time you'll do a single access account, then you may as well just withdraw the full amount as two faster payments and then close the account. CHAPS will almost gain you its fee back in interest as it is same day rather than next day then another next day, but if they insist on it being processe in person in branch, it's simply not worth the hassle. 

I have the joint version of this account with over £150k in it. If CHAPS needs to be done personally, then is there any harm in me attempting to withdraw it all as 4 "slightly faster" payments over 4+1 days? I know it will change into a different account after the 2nd withdrawal but, like you, I'm done with the hassle. Unlike the Stafford Railway, Chorley seem too fast to drop their market leading rates and I see no future for this account.

BlackthornU

gwapenut said:

If this is the last time you'll do a single access account, then you may as well just withdraw the full amount as two faster payments and then close the account. CHAPS will almost gain you its fee back in interest as it is same day rather than next day then another next day, but if they insist on it being processe in person in branch, it's simply not worth the hassle. 

I have the joint version of this account with over £150k in it. If CHAPS needs to be done personally, then is there any harm in me attempting to withdraw it all as 4 "slightly faster" payments over 4+1 days? I know it will change into a different account after the 2nd withdrawal but, like you, I'm done with the hassle. Unlike the Stafford Railway, Chorley seem too fast to drop their market leading rates and I see no future for this account.

Re Choley -1 withdrawal -Only extra point to consider re closing the account is generating the interest in this tax year rather than next. Pays out interest in December so 2 months worth. Not sure if 2 withdrawals meaning the account changes to a basic one will trigger the interest payment. Getting interest early is usually good for compounding but not if you lose an extra 20% in tax.
Also, again for me, the Head Office Branch accepted the CHAPs form by post having emailed it out to me. It does have a box in the 'Office only' section for them to enter if Post or Branch.

gwapenut

Thank you, that is a good point and would actually work in my favour. Even if the 2 withdrawals turning it into a basic account don't trigger the payment, the ultimate closing of the basic account will.

Thanks for the info re: CHAPS by post, that does give me another option.

RichTips

Update:

After discovering the £50,000 limit on internal transfers within Chorley BS, yesterday I spoke to them about how odd it seemed. In response, they agreed in writing that "if you request two internal transfers to your Chorleian account, this will only count as one withdrawal".

So, I'm now lowering the balance down to £500 to retain the interest accrued at 5.3% on the total balance up until they reduced the rate to 5.1% a couple of days ago, which can stay there at least until December 31st when they pay the interest, with the rest then transfered to my nominated account using the second Chorley account I now have (that isn't subject to withdrawal limits). It seems like this will avoid the £25 CHAPS fee and give me the freedom to get the balance on an account at a different institution with a very slightly better interest rate and far more allowable withdrawals.

10_66

RichTips said:

Update:

After discovering the £50,000 limit on internal transfers within Chorley BS, yesterday I spoke to them about how odd it seemed. In response, they agreed in writing that "if you request two internal transfers to your Chorleian account, this will only count as one withdrawal".

So, I'm now lowering the balance down to £500 to retain the interest accrued at 5.3% on the total balance up until they reduced the rate to 5.1% a couple of days ago, which can stay there at least until December 31st when they pay the interest, with the rest then transfered to my nominated account using the second Chorley account I now have (that isn't subject to withdrawal limits). It seems like this will avoid the £25 CHAPS fee and give me the freedom to get the balance on an account at a different institution with a very slightly better interest rate and far more allowable withdrawals.

Is there any reason why you can't just transfer it all into the Chorleian account and close the Easy Access (1 w/d) account at the same time, instead of waiting until December (unless waiting for tax purpose)?  I only ask, as this is what I'd intended to do.  What a palaver, but I'm not complaining really as they've had a better interest rate than other "easy access(?)" accounts.

RichTips

10_66 said:

RichTips said:

Update:

After discovering the £50,000 limit on internal transfers within Chorley BS, yesterday I spoke to them about how odd it seemed. In response, they agreed in writing that "if you request two internal transfers to your Chorleian account, this will only count as one withdrawal".

So, I'm now lowering the balance down to £500 to retain the interest accrued at 5.3% on the total balance up until they reduced the rate to 5.1% a couple of days ago, which can stay there at least until December 31st when they pay the interest, with the rest then transfered to my nominated account using the second Chorley account I now have (that isn't subject to withdrawal limits). It seems like this will avoid the £25 CHAPS fee and give me the freedom to get the balance on an account at a different institution with a very slightly better interest rate and far more allowable withdrawals.

Is there any reason why you can't just transfer it all into the Chorleian account and close the Easy Access (1 w/d) account at the same time, instead of waiting until December (unless waiting for tax purpose)?  I only ask, as this is what I'd intended to do.  What a palaver, but I'm not complaining really as they've had a better interest rate than other "easy access(?)" accounts.

Now that it's not offering a market leading rate and it's an account with a 1 withdrawal limit, I'd like the money somewhere offering more with less restrictions and using a means that won't pay out further interest this tax year (so yes, tax purposes do play a role in it). That said, I'm also just happy leaving the interest-acquired £500 there, under the assumption that I should get almost 2 months of a high balance's worth of interest, plus 10 months of, if we're lucky, 5.1% on £500 (I expect further interest reductions) as a New Year gift for myself. Getting a Certificate of Interest for my self assessment may also be less of a headache with the account still open.

As to an earlier point about CHAPS withdrawals by post, they do allow them and they corrected the mistake where they told me that this had to be in-branch. Yesterday, I was actually told three things that required correction on further prodding. Bearable mistakes but not ideal.