The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

Band7

Bridlington1 said:

Band7 said:

The MonBS Premium Instant Access account is anything but instant or premium. Leaving all the account opening difficulties to one side, neither the deposits nor the withdrawals are instant, and of course you only get the 3% if your balance is £25k+. They generally only process deposits and withdrawals on working days, but it seems withdrawals get only paid on the next working day. Even Al Rayan are faster than that.

In contrast, the CHIP 3% instant access account is genuinely instant (ignoring any hold ups inflicted by your current account provider) and has no silly minimum balance requirement. The only downside of CHIP is the bonus, which they pay instead of interest, which is not FSCS protected, which doesn't compound and which isn't straight forward to withdraw. I think you can get round these issues by withdrawing your complete balance once the monthly bonus has been credited. Your principal gets paid out instantly, the bonus on the next working day. Once you have the bonus money, you can re-deposit the lot. A bit of a faff, and hopefully a true, normal, 3% instant access account will appear soon.

That's if you can even make withdrawals. I still haven't had my nominated bank account verified yet despite sending an original bank statement a month ago and thus can't withdraw funds from the account unless I want to travel over 200 miles to my local branch or have a cheque sent to me, losing about a fortnight's worth of interest in the process. I sent them a secure message on 28th December regarding this with no response yet.

I hope you have actually deposited at least £25,000 with them, as they refuse to let you make withdrawals if you never deposited £25k in the first place. Here is a message I got from them this morning (message just sits in your secure msg inbox, no alert by email or text):

"Unfortunately, as this account has not been funded up to the minimum balance allowed for the product, we cannot process this transaction request. You may fund this account up to the minimum balance allowed for our Premium Instant product of £25,000 before making a withdrawal request, or you may also choose to authorise a full closure of your account to access the funds that are present in the account"

So you cannot test out withdrawals before you commit £25k to them. After all the dramas and delays with MonBS in recent weeks, there is no chance on God's earth that I will deposit £25k with them without knowing what is involved in getting it out again.

Their blurb does say The minimum amount required to open this account is £25,000 so technically, my account is not open even though it shows online and they are happy to take deposits of less than £25k from me.

Lesson learnt. This MonBS account is now closed as I had enough. Luckily, I have CHIP as an acceptable 3% truly instant alternative, anyway

sturgeon

Bridlington1 said:

AlwaysLearnin said:

Not sure if it's been mentioned already, but noticed that details of the latest YBS rate increases (wef 17th Jan) are now available

https://www.ybs.co.uk/boe-rate-change

Rainy day issue 2 to rise to 3.35% from 17th January, overtaking Coventry by 0.1%.

Family saver (NLA) rising to 3% also.

The Rainy day issue 2 says it’s only 3.35% for up to £5k though unless I’m wrong?

Wheres_My_Cashback

Minty33 said:

andyhicks88 said:

Think Coventry is still the best option. I wish they had an app, but I think the .25% difference between that and the closet rival with an app is too much to turn down. Any less and I might not go for it.

Do we think the Coventry BS will be busy on Friday / over the weekend? (or does the 6 access put people off)
Website potentially busy with people late to the party opening accounts, and those already in moving money and trying to check their balance?

Might move some money over tomorrow instead incase the website can't cope with heavy traffic on Friday

Choices, choices...Whether to move from YBS6 (NLA) to Coventry6 on Friday for 11 days and then back again to YBS6 when their rate increases to 3.50%....all for £6.38 extra.

dekkard

Wheres_My_Cashback said:

Minty33 said:

andyhicks88 said:

Think Coventry is still the best option. I wish they had an app, but I think the .25% difference between that and the closet rival with an app is too much to turn down. Any less and I might not go for it.

Do we think the Coventry BS will be busy on Friday / over the weekend? (or does the 6 access put people off)
Website potentially busy with people late to the party opening accounts, and those already in moving money and trying to check their balance?

Might move some money over tomorrow instead incase the website can't cope with heavy traffic on Friday

Choices, choices...Whether to move from YBS6 (NLA) to Coventry6 on Friday for 11 days and then back again to YBS6 when their rate increases to 3.50%....all for £6.38 extra.

And waste some of your limited withdrawal options? Not worth it surely.

Johnjdc

Has anyone seen any indication of whether Coventry's increase will be mirrored in the Coventry account available through Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings (which I happen to have one of already albeit with £0 in)...

TiVo_Lad

Johnjdc said:

Has anyone seen any indication of whether Coventry's increase will be mirrored in the Coventry account available through Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings (which I happen to have one of already albeit with £0 in)...

The HL website says:

We don’t charge you directly, instead we charge our banking partners. This means the same or similar products offered directly by the banks and building societies may have different rates to those available on Active Savings.

This would suggest maybe not.

ColdIron

Johnjdc said:

Has anyone seen any indication of whether Coventry's increase will be mirrored in the Coventry account available through Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings (which I happen to have one of already albeit with £0 in)...

I'm curious to see myself. I have 2 of them and in the past they have gone up in concert with those available direct, though at a slightly lower rate. I live in hope

Johnjdc

TiVo_Lad said:

Johnjdc said:

Has anyone seen any indication of whether Coventry's increase will be mirrored in the Coventry account available through Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings (which I happen to have one of already albeit with £0 in)...

The HL website says:

We don’t charge you directly, instead we charge our banking partners. This means the same or similar products offered directly by the banks and building societies may have different rates to those available on Active Savings.

This would suggest maybe not.

Oh yes I'm sure it's not a certainty. I guess we'll find out next week - question is whether it's 1%, 99%, 37% likely...

Currently paying 2.74% so maybe it will go up to 3.14%!

Bridlington1

sturgeon said:

Bridlington1 said:

AlwaysLearnin said:

Not sure if it's been mentioned already, but noticed that details of the latest YBS rate increases (wef 17th Jan) are now available

https://www.ybs.co.uk/boe-rate-change

Rainy day issue 2 to rise to 3.35% from 17th January, overtaking Coventry by 0.1%.

Family saver (NLA) rising to 3% also.

The Rainy day issue 2 says it’s only 3.35% for up to £5k though unless I’m wrong?

That is correct.

jak22

The Coventry 4 or 6 access seem to consistently keep up with BoE rises. There's up to a month before their rises come into force but they do publish the new rates very soon after the BoE announcement - it's certainly quicker than YBS. Other EA accounts seem to inconsistently increase after falling behind for a month or two but with Coventry there seems less need to shuffle between accounts.