The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

jollyme

Tax payers will benefit more from an ISA than the Santander's 3%

DragonQ

jollyme wrote: »

Tax payers will benefit more from an ISA than the Santander's 3%

In the long run, yes. Depends what your ISA is for.

Steve_xx wrote: »

Leeds Building Society have an ISA at 3.05% - but you have to stick with it for 5 years!

Link: http://www.leedsbuildingsociety.co.uk/savings/rates-isa-tax-free.html

Yeah, it's a shame. 5 years is a hell of a long time; anyone who fixed for 5 years circa 2008 is probably laughing now, but even if you know you won't need the money for 5 years, rates could easily increase in that time.

Steve_xx

DragonQ wrote: »

In the long run, yes. Depends what your ISA is for.


Yeah, it's a shame. 5 years is a hell of a long time; anyone who fixed for 5 years circa 2008 is probably laughing now, but even if you know you won't need the money for 5 years, rates could easily increase in that time.

Yes, one hopes that rates will increase in that period. However, I took the view that it's only 5,670's worth. And, you can in fact get at 25% of it without notice of loss of interest, and you can have the remainder if you are prepared to forego 180 days worth of interest. I guess you have to make the decision at the time if interest rates on ISA's move up sharply. You would do the sums and then shift it if it seemed more profitable to do so.

jollyme

There are 2 5 year fix ISA's on offer by Leeds Building Society - only one of them allows 25% to be withdrawn - the interest rate for this account is slightly less at 2.9%

Archi_Bald

5 years is an awful long time.

jollyme

I agree - whatever your age - 5years is a long time

creddish

smcg2212 wrote: »

Does anyone know if you have to have an amount taken out by the DDs each month to get interest on the account or do they just need to be set up?

I don't want to set this up and then lose the 3% interest each month when I don't use my credit card and the DD doesn't take anything out of my account!

I have not seen a specific clause in Santander T&Cs which clarifies this. However, when I set up my account I only had two DDs set up within the first full month. One was for an energy account which was paid during the first month. The other was for a telecoms account which is typically paid every three months and there was no payment during the first month. I was paid interest at the end of the month. I assume from this that payments every month are not required.

Colin

DragonQ

Not only is 5 years a long time but fixing when the market is at its lowest just seems very silly.

Steve_xx

DragonQ wrote: »

Not only is 5 years a long time but fixing when the market is at its lowest just seems very silly.

You cant tell whether the market will move significantly. Savings rates could go lower as banks try to recover losses on the bad decisions they made on tracker mortgages and there's also their losses in the form of fines for mal advice and PPI selling.

AlTimian

Thanks for the tips all. Will check out the Santander 123 account. I like the idea of 3% for a current account!