Regular Savings Accounts: The Best Currently Available List!

veryintrigued

cricidmuslibale said:

An important point to remember here is that the vast majority of regular savers that are currently available, no matter whether the interest rate is fixed or variable, allow very few, if any, penalty-free withdrawals and so you mostly have to accept that all money deposited in them will not be available until the regular saver matures; in that way at least they are not entirely dissimilar to a 12 month fixed rate account.

Looking at the first third (I got bored after that) of my spreadsheet:

I have 14 RS which allow > 1 withdrawals.
And 
I have 5 RS which allow closure without penalty.
Those alone allow over £8k of deposits a month and are well above the 0.5% 

A number of these are still around.

Hence these are nothing like fixed rate, fixed term accounts. I'd keep looking if I were you using the first page and also accounts which are highlighted on here but don't quite meet the first page criteria.

Good luck

colsten

If you are scared of variable rates, just don't go for accounts with variable rates. Also, as and if a provider drops the variable rate, you are free to reduce your monthly deposit amounts. I know of no RS which requires more than £25/mth - in fact, most that I know of don't have any minimum monthly deposit requirements. And finally, even if hit with a rate drop before maturity, you'll hardly lose much money - not only because interest rates are pitiful to start with but also because it's not exactly easy, or even possible, to find better rates elsewhere. 

SFindlay

cricidmuslibale 

I have to agree with surreysaver on this tbh! I'm personally very uncomfortable with applying for and then regularly funding every month any regular saver account that pays less than 1% at any time which is why I'm very wary of variable rate regular savers paying c.1%! I strongly believe that a fixed rate of 1% should be the absolute minimum interest rate that a regular saver should offer in order for it not to be unfairly stingy, given that saving into a regular saver usually involves the discipline of funding it most months if not every month over the lifetime of that regular saver. Also, even if it is funded every month, the interest paid will be only equate to that on just over a half of the final balance so e.g. with £3000 saved in total at 1% fixed over a 12 month period, the interest payment will only be £16.23 approx., nowhere near the £30 one would get from saving a lump sum of £3000 in a 12 month fixed rate account paying 1%. [Clearly I'm all too aware that at present 12 month fixed rate accounts are paying only c.0.6% at best but that still gives you an interest payment of c.£18 after 12 months.]

An important point to remember here is that the vast majority of regular savers that are currently available, no matter whether the interest rate is fixed or variable, allow very few, if any, penalty-free withdrawals and so you mostly have to accept that all money deposited in them will not be available until the regular saver matures; in that way at least they are not entirely dissimilar to a 12 month fixed rate account.

I think most people on here will be in a similar position to me that have at least 2 instant access accounts still paying more than the new rates offered by Lloyds Group so unlikely to open once current ones mature however a number of your points are innacurate and misleading for those not so familiar with Regular Saver accounts and could unnecessarily put people off them. Bottom line is they're not going to make you rich quick but no saving account is going to do that, they will however in general provide better rates than available elsewhere in conventional savings accounts so people shouldn't be put off from them.

Firstly fixed rate or variable is pretty much irrelevant as I've yet to open a variable rate product that doesn't allow closure of account without penalty and full interest paid up to date of closure of a variable account that has its rate reduced. Invariably when you get the notification of a rate drop you get option to close account without penalty or accept the rate drop, most recent significant example is probably YBS last year who slashed their rates and most people closed the worst hit accounts and got full interest paid.

Secondly the age old argument of only really getting half the advertised rate has been shown time and time again to be misleading, you get the FULL interest rate for the whole time the money is in the account end of. For people who are funding RS from other savings rather than spare wages etc then the lump sum will be in a feeder account, mine currently paying 1.02% and backup paying 0.8% so you're ignoring fact lump sum earning that before being transferred to RS so interest earned yearly is greater than you state. Unfortunately you're not comparing like for like so your figures are very manipulated and misleading particularly as you say yourself the figures quoted are based on accounts that don't exist!!! You can't say it's better to have money in a 1 year fixed rate account paying 1% when that product doesn't exist! That's like me saying you're better off paying it into a easy access savings account paying 5%, yeah obviously it's better but not possible!!

Lastly the point about money being tied up for a year isn't entirely correct, many such as BOS, Lloyds, TSB, Virgin to name but a few allow penalty free withdrawals if people require it HOWEVER in reality the majority of people want to save for the entire year so its not a problem and most RS paying 1% and above are paying double the interest of a 1 year fixed rate saver where you are certainly tied to leaving the money there or heavily penalised to withdraw it. In reality the opposite applies to many people here who rather than being disappointed their money is tied up for a year actually wish they could keep saving beyond the 12 months at the same rate rather than having to take the new version of the product. 

cricidmuslibale

eskbanker said:

cricidmuslibale said:
I strongly believe that a fixed rate of 1% should be the absolute minimum interest rate that a regular saver should offer in order for it not to be unfairly stingy

You're entitled to your opinion but there's obviously no reason why you should anticipate the market complying with your arbitrary expectations! I don't anticipate the market complying but I still think my fervent belief that 1% fixed should be the minimum interest rate offered by regular savers is entirely reasonable to say the very least, especially when not long ago 2.75% fixed was available on regular savers from very conservative big banks like HSBC! I don't think many people with good financial sense will waste their time and money opening and saving funds in regular savers paying less than 1% tbh.

cricidmuslibale said:
Also, even if it is funded every month, the interest paid will be only equate to that on just over a half of the final balance so e.g. with £3000 saved in total at 1% fixed over a 12 month period, the interest payment will only be £16.23 approx., nowhere near the £30 one would get from saving a lump sum of £3000 in a 12 month fixed rate account paying 1%. [Clearly I'm all too aware that at present 12 month fixed rate accounts are paying only c.0.6% at best but that still gives you an interest payment of c.£18 after 12 months.]

The futility of attempting to compare regular saver interest with that earned on a lump sum equivalent to the final balance has been done to death on numerous previous threads....

With respect, I don't regard the above as futile at all! I actually think it's a perfectly reasonable comparison to make before deciding whether or not to open and regularly fund a very limited or no access until maturity regular saver account! 

eskbanker

cricidmuslibale said:
I don't anticipate the market complying but I still think my fervent belief that 1% fixed should be the minimum interest rate offered by regular savers is entirely reasonable to say the very least, especially when not long ago 2.75% fixed was available on regular savers from very conservative big banks like HSBC! I don't think many people with good financial sense will waste their time and money opening and saving funds in regular savers paying less than 1% tbh.

I don't claim the right to speak for others, but for me it depends entirely on what options are available at the time - there's no point in reminiscing about what rates were available in the past as that's completely irrelevant to decisions to be made now.  Of course it's your prerogative to set an arbitrary figure below which you're not interested (no pun intended), just as it is for this thread's 'owner' to set their own criteria, but there's no reason to believe that others will adopt the same view....

Nick_C

The Lloyds and Club Lloyds Regular Savers remain useful accounts as they provide a hugh amount of flexibility.  Fund each one with the minimum of £25 each month by standing order, and you can top up as and when (up to the monthly limits) and make unlimited withdrawals.  They really are instant access accounts for smaller sums.  They will be useful for people who are genuinely saving up for something, or who have spare income that they don't know what to do with, as opposed to people trying to maximise the income on existing capital.

If you have both accounts, you can save up to £650 every month at 0.9% with access to your money whenever you need it.

what7

Considering I am getting 0.778% with BOS Lloyds current account. I'm not gonna bother with 0.75% RS

I was gonna open 1% in new tax year, as my next tax year already over £1000.

Hoping HSBC, tsb, nationwide, principality, Dudley don't drop their. 

MDMD

what7 said:

Considering I am getting 0.778% with BOS Lloyds current account. I'm not gonna bother with 0.75% RS

I was gonna open 1% in new tax year, as my next tax year already over £1000.

Hoping HSBC, tsb, nationwide, principality, Dudley don't drop their. 

The RS rate is fixed, the current accounts are variable and they potentially could drop soon.

what7

I don't pay much attention to this fixed/variable. I only look at the interest rate at present time, if it does drop, I will review accordingly.

Fingerbobs

colsten said:

If you are scared of variable rates, just don't go for accounts with variable rates. Also, as and if a provider drops the variable rate, you are free to reduce your monthly deposit amounts. I know of no RS which requires more than £25/mth

Whenever an interest rate goes down during the fixed term, in my experience the provider will let you close the account with no penalty at that point. I've never been locked into a reduced interest rate on any account, and I think it would be very unfair to do this.