The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

eskbanker

S_and_J wrote: »

On the moneysavingexpert savings-accounts-best-interest page, listed under "The best five-year fixed rates", there's United Bank UK with an AER of 2.36%. Looks good, but if you go to the bank's webpage for Fixed Term Deposits and look under "What would the estimated balance be at the end of the selected term based on the minimum required deposit?" on the bank website, you find that the return on a deposit of £2000 after five years is £2236. The website says that this is for an AER of 2.36%, but according to my calculations if it was 2.36%, after five years the balance should be just over £2247. £2236 is what you'd get if the AER was 2.26%.
Am I missing something?

Yes, you're missing the fact that they don't compound interest in the usual way, as explained at https://www.ubluk.com/personal-banking/products-and-services/personal-savings-accounts/fixed-term-deposits/:

IMPORTANT NOTICE: UBL UK does not compound interest and interest is not added to your principal amount on any selected interest payment frequency.

so 2.36% annually on £2,000 for five years is no more than £236 when not adding the interest to the account each year.

Chordeiles

I tried to open an ICICI account a few years ago and gave up (they seemed so incompetent I was starting to lose the will to live !). I recall that at the same time the Nottingham Building Society effectively turned me away by having an ID verification process that seemed impossible to satisfy. In the event RCI bank got the money and I've been extremely happy with them. But RCI is not the top easy access account in late 2019.

So today I opened a Marcus account. Application form has a way of looking up your address from the postcode and then offering you a drop-down box for you to choose which number on the street you are. Drop-down box had perfect address information but that was not what got auto-filled on their application form ! Had omitted what is sometimes called the second line of the address, sometimes called "district", and at my address that does often cause problems, as there are multiple instances of the name of my street within the same "postal town" region. Never mind, was able to correct manually, but a poor first impression. Otherwise all went well and was able to deposit a trial amount to the account that was fairly soon showing there.

Now Marcus exclude joint accounts, so a few minutes later my wife was trying to open a similar account. Same issue with the address, easily fixed. But whereas I was asked for no ID, in my wife's case they wanted two types of ID to be uploaded. And many hours later her account has still not opened. My guess is that it choked when it saw a second customer at the same address, or with the same "linked account".

Called Marcus, mainly to advise them that their auto-address finder was flawed, but also to ask if two accounts with same address and linked account are a problem. Call was answered but silent. Well not quite silent, sounds of a call centre in the background, plus occasional sound of someone moving the telephone handset around their desk. So the poor first impression is fully reinforced now, and I'm wondering whether to bother with Marcus !

In a huge contrast, my wife had closed a Virgin account more than three years ago (as RCI were offering better interest at that time), yet her login still worked and from there it was very easy to open a "Double Take e-saver", including making it a joint account and creating a new login for myself. So there is already money in the Virgin account that might have been in Marcus.

The MSE savings page has a small write-up on "Raisin" but I'd note that Hargreaves Lansdown have a very similar product called "Active Savings". We had joined this last week as one of the accounts within it was the BLME 1 year fix at 1.9%, which suited us very well. But now we want to add some more there are few accounts there to tempt us. The BLME 1 year fix has been replaced by a BLME 6 month fix which might be exclusive to HL Active Savings but isn't that tempting. So we will end up going direct to BLME for more fixed-term savings, and it feels like the "Active Savings" route has been a waste of time (except we did grab 2 x the £25 joining incentive whilst it was on offer !).

I-LOV-MONEY

I signed up to Marcus about a year or so ago, I can't remember what information I had to provide them. I wanted to set up a joint account because I had an account, my wife had an account and there is 'joint money' which is usued for bills etc,



What I did is to put the money into one account, and then kept a separate record on an Excel of how much belonged to each!


The only annoying thing I find about Marcus, is if you want to arrange to withdraw / transfer money after 23:00 it doesn't deal with it until the next day. Also weekends are very slow.

adindas

Virgin Money double Take E-Saver & Man Utd Double Take E-Saver
I am aware it is not as good as Marcus or Al Rayan (before the interest was dropped). However, if you already have both Marcus or Al Rayan saving accounts, it is probably good as a backup in case the interest rate of Marcus & AR drop again.

It Just needs £1 to maintain it.
Variable rate of: 1.45%

It is not fully easy access but it allow Up to 2 fee free withdrawals per calendar year. Once you make a withdrawal, you could just close it and open a new one again to refresh 2 withdrawals per calendar year.

It is painless process to Open this account if you already have a VM account. In addition, FPI / FPO with virgin money to other banks is almost instant.

IanManc

adindas wrote: »

Virgin Money double Take E-Saver & Man Utd Double Take E-Saver
I am aware it is not as good as Marcus or Al Rayan (before the interest was dropped). However, if you already have both Marcus or Al Rayan saving accounts, it is probably good as a backup in case the interest rate of Marcus & AR drop again.

It Just needs £1 to maintain it.
Variable rate of: 1.45%

It is not fully easy access but it allow Up to 2 fee free withdrawals per calendar year. Once you make a withdrawal, you could just close it and open a new one again to refresh 2 withdrawals per calendar year.

It is painless process to Open this account if you already have a VM account. In addition, FPI / FPO with virgin money to other banks is almost instant.

If you close a Virgin double-take e-saver then you can't immediately open another identical one, as you can only open one of each issue, and the system will block it. You would need to wait until another issue is available to open a new account. However, you can have one of each of the double take e-savers currently available.

IanManc

adindas wrote: »

Good point. I know this is the case with their regular saving ac. But there is no issue number is indicated in this saving product. Also it is not mentioned about that on their product summary.

https://uk.virginmoney.com/savings/products/double_take_e_saver_issue_12#summary-box

It is a variable rate with no maturity, no issue number attached it so they might be just changing the interest rate if they need it anytime without the need to launch a new issue like the one with Tesco Internet saving account.

But to know about this for sure, need to wait people share their personal experience.

The link you provided itself shows that the Double Take E-Saver is Issue 12.

On the Virgin website it says: "Please read the following Summary Box before applying for this account".

The Summary Box for the account is headed: "Account name: Double Take E-Saver Issue 12" and for the Man Utd one the Summary Box says "Account name: Man Utd Double Take E-Saver Issue 7".

Both Summary Boxes also state: "Only one account can be opened per customer per issue."

quirkydeptless

IanManc wrote: »

The Summary Box for the account is headed: "Account name: Double Take E-Saver Issue 12" and for the Man Utd one the Summary Box says "Account name: Man Utd Double Take E-Saver Issue 7"

Did popular pressure force them to create an alternate account for people who hate MU?:rotfl:

adindas

IanManc wrote: »

The link you provided itself shows that the Double Take E-Saver is Issue 12.

On the Virgin website it says: "Please read the following Summary Box before applying for this account".

The Summary Box for the account is headed: "Account name: Double Take E-Saver Issue 12" and for the Man Utd one the Summary Box says "Account name: Man Utd Double Take E-Saver Issue 7".

Both Summary Boxes also state: "Only one account can be opened per customer per issue."

Yes you are right. I have deleted my original post ...
I think it is better to open both Double Take E-Saver Issue 12 and for the Man Utd and put £1+. Doing this we will actually have four free withdrawals (2 withdrawal each) which with good planning it is already more than enough.

Poor_Leno

I have held a Newbury BS account for a couple years now, mainly cos of the 1.5% rate (which was then beaten by Marcus, which I also have an account). I'm wondering where to stick the £3,600 from my first direct regular saver later this month, and noticed Newbury also has a 1.75% easy access account for existing members. albeit with a £2,0000 calendar year subscription limit. So, was going to put £2,000 in before the end of the year, then the other 1,600 in thw New Year.

Is their a better rate anywhere than this for instant access? I searched hard and can't find better than this 1.75%. Just wondered if that rate can be beaten.

Thanks!

colsten

1.75% can't now be beaten for instant access. But you could get 1.9% if you can fix for a year at BLME, where you can deposit the lot in one go.