Regular Savings Accounts: The Best Currently Available List!

DeepSporran

Anyone opened an Abbey at Bradford and Bingley Fixed Rate Monthly saver 6% yet ?

I rang the local branch to see if I could just turn up to open it, but no, I had to make an appointment. The adviser said the meeting could take up to an hour. Sounds like they want to try do a full financial review rather than just open the account. Suppose that may be why you can only open in branch.

apt

No cross-selling (or appointment) when I opened a Abbey at Bradford and Bingley Fixed Rate Monthly saver. If you want to put money in this account before 2 April and have it mature 1/4/10 rather than 1/5/10 you'll need to open it by Saturday.

DeepSporran

Sounds like each branch does things its own way.

I'm not actually in a great hurry to open the account, but I do want to catch it before it's withdrawn or the rate drops.

feralkitten

I went along yesterday to open one (with an appointment). It did take quite a time, especially since the computer input being carried out by the counter staff decided to develop gremlins to the extent that error messages kept appearing. I was amused to listen to the staff reading out the messages letter by letter, as they appeared in spanish, and they needed to relay them by telephone to their IT helpdesk. After three-quarters of an hour, they offered to post the passbook to me, rather then keep me waiting for an unknown period. I'll take along my spanish dictionary for my next visit!

bristolleedsfan

Special_Saver2 wrote: »

Regarding the Beverley BS regular savings account that we have discussed in the posts above, I thought it only fair to mention that I have received a reply to an e-mail that I sent this weekend to Beverley BS asking about the interest rate on this account. Although the bonus component of the interest is going to drop to 1.5%, they are planning on making the non-bonus interest rate 1% giving an overall interest rate of 2.5% from 1st March. I do still have the concerns expressed in post 529 plus the interest rate is not great, so I am going to keep this account off the list for now.


SS2

Letter from Beverley BS wrote:Dear Mr Bristolleedsfan

Following the Society's recent letter I have reviewed the basis of the proposed change to the bonus structure.
This was undertaken under the terms of the 'General Information' contained in the Society's 'Savings Guide For
Investors' which states that 'Prevailing interest rates and terms and conditions may vary from time to time.'

I have been advised that this has caused some confusion and have therefore reviewed the decision and am
pleased to confirm that the bonus on the account will remain at 3%. The interest rate will therefore remain at
3.10%, inclusive of the bonus until further notice. Please accept my apologies for any further confusion this
may cause but hopefully this action will demonstrate that the Society is keen to reward its regular savers
particularly at this time when savers interest rates are being hit by the general economic conditions.

If you have any questions please contact the Society where one of my staff will be happy to help.

Yours sincerely

P Gray
Chief Executive

bootman

DeepSporran wrote: »

Anyone opened an Abbey at Bradford and Bingley Fixed Rate Monthly saver 6% yet ?

I rang the local branch to see if I could just turn up to open it, but no, I had to make an appointment. The adviser said the meeting could take up to an hour. Sounds like they want to try do a full financial review rather than just open the account. Suppose that may be why you can only open in branch.

Just opened one today. Walked in had to wait 20 minutes for a lady complaining that she is still waiting for her new account number from opening one last week and wanting the s/o to go through on the 2nd.

My application form was filled out on a paper form and the lady said should be a few days for them to get through the bag log of applications.

She did not try and sell me anything else, i only took about 10 mins of her time.

chris1

Nationwide have announced rate changes to their Regular Saver from 1st March and increased the maximum to £1K pm. Contributions of £500-1K per month get the 3% rate.

chris1

Hi SS2
Scottish BS now have a £1K maximum for monthly payments.
HTH

Special_Saver2

Hi Folks,

Here is this weekend's update:

- Scottish BS Regular Savings account now has a monthly deposit limit of £1,000 (previously unlimited). The interest rate remains unchanged so far since 4th December 2008

- Nottingham BS Regular Saver interest rate 3.25% (down 0.20%) according to emoneyfacts

- Britannia BS Regular Saver interest rate 3.10% from 28th February (rate unchanged) according to the Britannia website

- Beverley BS Monthly Saver interest rate 3.10% and the notification on their website that the interest rate was going to drop has been removed (which goes along with bristolleedsfan's post above, thanks). I have restored this account to post 2 of this thread

- Principality BS Fixed Rate Regular Saver Bond (4%) was withdrawn on 23rd February

- Principality BS St David's Day Regular Saver Bond (4.5%) - the withdrawal terms and conditions seem to have changed. I think that last week the terms and conditions were the same as the Fixed Rate Regular Saver Bond, i.e. you could close the account down early subject to an interest penalty. The main page and this other page now indicate you cannot make any withdrawals prior to maturity although the terms and conditions page still shows that you can close the account early with interest paid at the bottom tier of the Instant Access account rate. I think that they intend for this account to allow no withdrawals and they have forgotten to change the terms and conditions document.

- Ipswich BS Target Saver 4 interest rate 2.95% (down 1%)

- Bank of Ireland High Interest Regular Saver account interest rate 2% fixed for new applicants (was 3% fixed)

- Chelsea BS Monthly Extra interest rate 4% (down 0.5%)

- Tesco Internet Saver (feeder section) interest rate 1.75% (down 0.75%) from 5th March according to this other thread

Bootman and feralkitten, I am sorry to hear about the difficulties you had opening a Bradford and Bingley account. When I used to be a customer with Abbey, their branches often seemed to have computer problems. It sounds like Bradford and Bingley have acquired the same problems following their acquisition by Abbey / Santander. I did chuckle a bit reading feralkitten's comment about bringing a Spanish dictionary next time!

There are still some interest rates that have not yet changed. I will do a mid-week update. At that point, the Nationwide BS Regular Saver account with its new £500-£1,000 tier paying 3% might make it back in to post 2.

All the best,
SS2

LongTermLurker

It did take quite a time, especially since the computer input being carried out by the counter staff decided to develop gremlins to the extent that error messages kept appearing. I was amused to listen to the staff reading out the messages letter by letter, as they appeared in spanish, and they needed to relay them by telephone to their IT helpdesk.

It sounds like Bradford and Bingley have acquired the same problems following their acquisition by Abbey / Santander. I did chuckle a bit reading feralkitten's comment about bringing a Spanish dictionary next time!

When any company gets taken over, I guess it's always a pain for staff to get used to a new system - but when you have to contend with dago software, what's left to do in life?