Regular Savings Accounts: The Best Currently Available List!

Bridlington1

silvercar said:

simonsmithsays said:

Section62 said:

simonsmithsays said:

Monmouthshire RS 8

Further to previous entries on this thread I've today received maturity instructions (letter dated 24/11) for the account which matured yesterday.

They really are rubbish

Monmouthshire BS, or Royal Mail?

Having had this issue with MBS before and also that the lack of maturity instructions on this account was raised by another forumite a month ago I'd say the former.

I had the letter a few weeks ago. I've since had a cheque(!) and paid it in, I couldn't see where to arrange withdrawal online. 

Mine matured on 8/12/23. Rather than faffing about with scanning the QR code on the letter or sending letters I just set up 3 transfers of £300 from the Christmas RS to my other MBS regular savers future dated to complete on 1/12/23 and a withdrawal of all barring £10 of the remaining balance to be carried out on 7th to my nominated account. I let the account mature into an EA account upon maturity on 8th and logged into online banking and closed it on 11th to recover the remaining balance with interest. It all went without any issues and was quite simple I found, no cheques or anything, just faster payments and a few optional extra internal transfers that I did for convenience.

allegro120

alibean121 said:

allegro120 said:

alibean121 said:

First direct have somehow still managed to surprise/disappoint me from what was a low base. Their RS maturity process is genuinely unacceptable.

My account matured yesterday and since Monday it disappeared from the account view, I decided today to message them. They have relevant options in the robot chat and say you can hit to speak to a human to get instant access to the money. I decide to do that, why not. Person says please message again tomorrow. Great, thanks.

This is a shocking suggestion but, if the account takes 5 days to close, why not start the process 5 days earlier and have it done on maturity date? I can’t imagine what they could possibly be doing with this time. 

That's a normal process for FD RS, account disappears from the view for a day or two.  Every time they send a letter or e-mail to remind about this few weeks prior to maturity.

The best way to contact them is phone call.

Thanks I do know they take a while with it. I've never dealt with First Direct before but have used HSBC my whole life as my main bank. I'm shocked by how much worse the technology and service is at FD as I'd always heard very good things. I am genuinely curious what they're up to with this time - I'm into building societies and some of the ones I've dealt with have been one man and a calculator type jobs, but they manage to pay out funds next working day. Anyways, never mind. I suppose I'm a rare RS veteran that has never dealt with FD before, I don't think I'll be repeating it anytime soon unless they up their rate again as they're not now even beating my ISA given tax position.

I've joined FD back in the mid 90's.  The main reason was 'telephone banking' which was very innovative and convenient - I could make bank transactions on the phone (calls to FD were free of charge) and if I needed to deposit or withdraw cash I could do it at HSBS branch.  That was a winner for me and soon after I opened current account they've launched 8% RS which was at the top of the table and when they reduced it to 6% it was still beating all other RSs.  All these are irrelevant now - we have online banking, apps and nobody charge for phone calls anymore but FD still remains my "main" bank. With regards to RS product they offer today, I don't mind a few days' delay between maturity and opening the new one - even if the gap is 5 days (never been that long for me, usually 1 or 2 days) you still get 6.9% profit. 

Emily_Joy

West Brom - can one hold several issues at the same time? Their T&C seem to suggest it is one account of each issue per person, not one RS per person at any time...

Gatehouse - they say the RS account pays profit, not interest. For the purpose of tax reduction does it still count towards personal saving allowance?..

allegro120

simonsmithsays said:

Section62 said:

simonsmithsays said:

Monmouthshire RS 8

Further to previous entries on this thread I've today received maturity instructions (letter dated 24/11) for the account which matured yesterday.

They really are rubbish

Monmouthshire BS, or Royal Mail?

Having had this issue with MBS before and also that the lack of maturity instructions on this account was raised by another forumite a month ago I'd say the former.

My Christmas MonBS is to mature on 18th December. I've receive the letter with maturity instructions on 1st December dated 30th November.  That's good enough for me. 

allegro120

Bridlington1 said:

silvercar said:

simonsmithsays said:

Section62 said:

simonsmithsays said:

Monmouthshire RS 8

Further to previous entries on this thread I've today received maturity instructions (letter dated 24/11) for the account which matured yesterday.

They really are rubbish

Monmouthshire BS, or Royal Mail?

Having had this issue with MBS before and also that the lack of maturity instructions on this account was raised by another forumite a month ago I'd say the former.

I had the letter a few weeks ago. I've since had a cheque(!) and paid it in, I couldn't see where to arrange withdrawal online. 

Mine matured on 8/12/23. Rather than faffing about with scanning the QR code on the letter or sending letters I just set up 3 transfers of £300 from the Christmas RS to my other MBS regular savers future dated to complete on 1/12/23 and a withdrawal of all barring £10 of the remaining balance to be carried out on 7th to my nominated account. I let the account mature into an EA account upon maturity on 8th and logged into online banking and closed it on 11th to recover the remaining balance with interest. It all went without any issues and was quite simple I found, no cheques or anything, just faster payments and a few optional extra internal transfers that I did for convenience.

It says in the letter "Should we not receive your instructions before  18th December [maturity date] the balance of your account will be transferred into our Easy Saver...".  I assumed that they will automatically open Easy Saver for me or do you think I should open one myself to avoid delays.

allegro120

Emily_Joy said:

Gatehouse - they say the RS account pays profit, not interest. For the purpose of tax reduction does it still count towards personal saving allowance?..

For tax purposes 'profit' counts the same as 'interest'.

Emily_Joy

allegro120 said:

Emily_Joy said:

Gatehouse - they say the RS account pays profit, not interest. For the purpose of tax reduction does it still count towards personal saving allowance?..

For tax purposes 'profit' counts the same as 'interest'.

Now I am getting concerned. Back in summer Gatehouse paid profit from my ISA into Barclays easy access ISA, but Barclays transferred that almost instantly into my current account. I was expecting the "profit" from ISA to be tax free. Is the latter transfer likely to cause an issue?..

friolento

allegro120 said:

Bridlington1 said:

silvercar said:

simonsmithsays said:

Section62 said:

simonsmithsays said:

Monmouthshire RS 8

Further to previous entries on this thread I've today received maturity instructions (letter dated 24/11) for the account which matured yesterday.

They really are rubbish

Monmouthshire BS, or Royal Mail?

Having had this issue with MBS before and also that the lack of maturity instructions on this account was raised by another forumite a month ago I'd say the former.

I had the letter a few weeks ago. I've since had a cheque(!) and paid it in, I couldn't see where to arrange withdrawal online. 

Mine matured on 8/12/23. Rather than faffing about with scanning the QR code on the letter or sending letters I just set up 3 transfers of £300 from the Christmas RS to my other MBS regular savers future dated to complete on 1/12/23 and a withdrawal of all barring £10 of the remaining balance to be carried out on 7th to my nominated account. I let the account mature into an EA account upon maturity on 8th and logged into online banking and closed it on 11th to recover the remaining balance with interest. It all went without any issues and was quite simple I found, no cheques or anything, just faster payments and a few optional extra internal transfers that I did for convenience.

It says in the letter "Should we not receive your instructions before  18th December [maturity date] the balance of your account will be transferred into our Easy Saver...".  I assumed that they will automatically open Easy Saver for me or do you think I should open one myself to avoid delays.

If you don't have an EA account, they just change your RS to an Easy Access account on maturity.Account number stays the same.

grumbler

Emily_Joy said:

allegro120 said:

Emily_Joy said:

Gatehouse - they say the RS account pays profit, not interest. For the purpose of tax reduction does it still count towards personal saving allowance?..

For tax purposes 'profit' counts the same as 'interest'.

Now I am getting concerned. Back in summer Gatehouse paid profit from my ISA into Barclays easy access ISA, but Barclays transferred that almost instantly into my current account. I was expecting the "profit" from ISA to be tax free. Is the latter transfer likely to cause an issue?..

Ask Barclays why. Was that because it exceeded your £20K annual contribution allowance?

I was expecting the "profit" from ISA to be tax free.

I don't see the relevance.

Kim_13

simonsmithsays said:

Section62 said:

simonsmithsays said:

Monmouthshire RS 8

Further to previous entries on this thread I've today received maturity instructions (letter dated 24/11) for the account which matured yesterday.

They really are rubbish

Monmouthshire BS, or Royal Mail?

Having had this issue with MBS before and also that the lack of maturity instructions on this account was raised by another forumite a month ago I'd say the former.

I did receive mine in good time, maturity was December 5th if I recall correctly. In the absence of any attractive options I simply saved myself the postage, let it default into Easy Access and withdrew that down to £1. Keeping that as it is my oldest account with MBS. 

The closer it gets to Christmas, the worse Royal Mail appear to be getting - just had to be refunded for a gift that never arrived.