£70k. Which bank?

steve_king_3

I'm about to receive around £70k and want to put it somewhere before I decide what to do with it. I may need fairly quick access. 
I realise interest rates are rubbish. I just want to put it somewhere for maybe did - twelve months while I work out my investment strategy.

steve_king_3

That should read "six - twelve"..

EssexExile

The most you're going to get is probably 0.5%, so a few hundred over a year. What's Marcus doing at the moment?

colsten

You could put up to £50K into Premium Bonds. 

For the rest, put £1,000 into a Virgin Money current account, and the remainder into the attached instant access saver.

Don't expect to make much money from it.


PS. If you do go the PB route, do all the depositing and withdrawing online yourself, through your NS&I online banking. Do not ask NS&I CS, do not fill in any form outside online banking to ask them to do something for you. There have been countless reports of things going into a black hole as soon as manual intervention from NS&I personnel was involved, whilst people had no problems when using their online banking. Make sure, however, to remember your answers to all the security questions they ask when you set up an account, as some numpties forget theirs and then needed to resort to help from NS&I personnel when trying to withdraw their money.....see above

jbrassy

I agree with the above comment. Open a Virgin Money current account and claim their free wine deal.
Then you can get 2% on the first £1000 and 0.5% on their easy access instant saver for the remaining £69k. That's about as good as it gets at the moment. 

Alternatively, you could open a stocks and shares ISA and invest in something low risk. Personally I would open one with Vanguard and invest in a short-term bond fund such as this one:
https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investments/vanguard-global-short-term-bond-index-fund-gbp-hedged-acc?intcmpgn=fixedincomeglobal_globalshorttermbondindexfund_fund_link

You'll probably get higher than 0.5% returns without much risk.

colsten

You don't have to switch to Virgin in order to open a current account with them. You can leave your existing current account arrangements untouched. 

If the money is required in the next 6-12 months, an S&S ISA, or any investment, is a terrible idea, I'm afraid. Investments are for the much longer term, generally at least 5 years.

jbrassy

colsten said:

You don't have to switch to Virgin in order to open a current account with them. You can leave your existing current account arrangements untouched. 

If the money is required in the next 6-12 months, an S&S ISA, or any investment, is a terrible idea, I'm afraid. Investments are for the much longer term, generally at least 5 years.

It's true that you don't have to switch to Virgin, but if you want to switch, then it's worth claiming the wine deal.

As for S&S ISA, I think it depends a lot on what you're investing in. With equities volatility and risk mean you should be looking at an investment  horizon of around 5 years. But if you're investing in investment grade bonds with short maturities, this risk is very low and you can invest for a shorter period.  

RetSol

I'm a fan of Hargreaves Landsdown Active Savings.  AJ Bell and Raisin have similar products.  They have 1/3/6/9/12 month fixed rates (availability varies) which are not market-leading but at least with a fixed rate you know what you are getting.  And, once you are up and running, you are spared the faff of opening further, new accounts. Once signed up to HL, they will make available to you "private offers" so there may be more rates available than there appear to be at first sight. I checked out the AJ Bell offering last week and they had a good variety of terms/rates available. 

Saul_Bass

RetSol said:

I'm a fan of Hargreaves Landsdown Active Savings.  AJ Bell and Raisin have similar products.  They have 1/3/6/9/12 month fixed rates (availability varies) which are not market-leading but at least with a fixed rate you know what you are getting.  And, once you are up and running, you are spared the faff of opening further, new accounts. Once signed up to HL, they will make available to you "private offers" so there may be more rates available than there appear to be at first sight. I checked out the AJ Bell offering last week and they had a good variety of terms/rates available. 

I've only ever used that company for buying Aston Martin shares a few years back. 

jbrassy

RetSol said:

I'm a fan of Hargreaves Landsdown Active Savings.   

I would personally avoid Hargreaves Lansdown. The interest rate on their easy access Active Savings rate product is well below the 0.5% offered by Virgin Money. Further, the fees they charge on their stocks and shares ISA are ludicrous. You'd be much better off with Vanguard. 

colsten

jbrassy said:

RetSol said:

I'm a fan of Hargreaves Landsdown Active Savings.   

I would personally avoid Hargreaves Lansdown. The interest rate on their easy access Active Savings rate product is well below the 0.5% offered by Virgin Money. Further, the fees they charge on their stocks and shares ISA are ludicrous. You'd be much better off with Vanguard. 

HL Active Savings is separate from the HL investment side of things. Some of the past HL Active Savings offers have been market-leading, especially when combined with a sign-up offer that pops up now and then. At present, however, they have no new accounts (not even private offer ones) that can't be bettered elsewhere. I do have an old Coventry Easy Access on HL with 0.55% AER, which I might use if it's still there when I inevitably will run out of other old accounts that are at the moment still paying a lot more.

For easy access savings, I would definitely keep HL Active Savings on my radar, alongside Raisin and moneyfacts.co.uk