The Top Fixed Interest Savings Discussion Area

allegro120

PragueAddick said:

I have a chunk of cash maturing at the end of the month and would like another 1yr fixed but with monthly interest. Thanks to @refluxer I checked the Moneysave link but options are scarce. I prefer names I know - not non-European banks.  Well, I know Zopa from P2P days, but I seem to recall a lot of complaints about them here. Then there is Saffron Building Society. That one OK? 
I have such deals with Charter Savings but am close to the 85k limit and anyway they don't feature on the list above 5% now. I have one with them which pays 5.86% (until August)

If I've missed a good one, would be pleased to get a heads-up. Thanks!

There are always complains about providers....
There's nothing wrong with Zopa or Saffron.  Your deposit is protected by FSCS - this is what matters, not the opinions of grumpy people or the name of the institution.
The best 1 year fix offers at the moment are 5.7% from Al Rayan and Union Bank of India(UK).

refluxer

PragueAddick said:

I have a chunk of cash maturing at the end of the month and would like another 1yr fixed but with monthly interest. Thanks to @refluxer I checked the Moneysave link but options are scarce. I prefer names I know - not non-European banks.  Well, I know Zopa from P2P days, but I seem to recall a lot of complaints about them here. Then there is Saffron Building Society. That one OK? 
I have such deals with Charter Savings but am close to the 85k limit and anyway they don't feature on the list above 5% now. I have one with them which pays 5.86% (until August)

If I've missed a good one, would be pleased to get a heads-up. Thanks!

The Moneyfacts comparison site is one of the best for being kept up to date so if you scroll down their list of the best 1 year fixed rate accounts until you find a bank you're happy with, then I'd be confident that you shouldn't miss anything. You can do a 'full search' to just display accounts that pay interest monthly, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it can be paid away so if that's what you're after, you'd need to check the providers' own sites. 

Saffron's monthly income bond is only paying 4.90% (4.79% if you have the interest paid away) which is really low - are you sure you want to sacrifice that much rate ? While there are quite a few banks paying more that I wouldn't touch with a barge-pole, there are also some that I wouldn't have a problem with. You'd even get more than 4.90% AER in an easy access account at the moment (although rates could head downwards, of course).

If you're going to open a fixed rate account in advance of the funds being available later this month, then make sure you pay attention to the funding window and don't cut it too fine, especially if it's a large amount and the sending bank has daily faster payment limits.

PragueAddick

refluxer said:

PragueAddick said:

I have a chunk of cash maturing at the end of the month and would like another 1yr fixed but with monthly interest. Thanks to @refluxer I checked the Moneysave link but options are scarce. I prefer names I know - not non-European banks.  Well, I know Zopa from P2P days, but I seem to recall a lot of complaints about them here. Then there is Saffron Building Society. That one OK? 
I have such deals with Charter Savings but am close to the 85k limit and anyway they don't feature on the list above 5% now. I have one with them which pays 5.86% (until August)

If I've missed a good one, would be pleased to get a heads-up. Thanks!

The Moneyfacts comparison site is one of the best for being kept up to date so if you scroll down their list of the best 1 year fixed rate accounts until you find a bank you're happy with, then I'd be confident that you shouldn't miss anything. You can do a 'full search' to just display accounts that pay interest monthly, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it can be paid away so if that's what you're after, you'd need to check the providers' own sites. 

Saffron's monthly income bond is only paying 4.90% (4.79% if you have the interest paid away) which is really low - are you sure you want to sacrifice that much rate ? While there are quite a few banks paying more that I wouldn't touch with a barge-pole, there are also some that I wouldn't have a problem with. You'd even get more than 4.90% AER in an easy access account at the moment (although rates could head downwards, of course).

If you're going to open a fixed rate account in advance of the funds being available later this month, then make sure you pay attention to the funding window and don't cut it too fine, especially if it's a large amount and the sending bank has daily faster payment limits.

Thanks for your advice; much appreciated. I was hoping to find another account which does what both my Charter Savings and NSI bonds do - pay-out monthly. It's not essential but nice to have as my monthly income is otherwise limited to UK State pension, a bit of Czech state pension, and some irregular consultancy work. Saffron is the first such to come up and as you say, I'm giving up quite a lot of interest for the convenience, so I'll just have to forego it, and go for a couple more annually paid bonds. The money is coming out from Secure Trust, they are still offering 5.5%, and I like them. You can get to speak to humans there almost immediately if you need them. Thanks to your Moneyfacts link the choices are much clearer; sorry I confused people by mis-naming it in my earlier post - too lazy to look it up and check the name.

sparkiemalarkie

Thanks for your advice; much appreciated. I was hoping to find another account which does what both my Charter Savings and NSI bonds do - pay-out monthly. It's not essential but nice to have as my monthly income is otherwise limited to UK State pension, a bit of Czech state pension, and some irregular consultancy work. 

I remember some advice from Martin Lewis years ago on this very point.

He suggested -
-work out how much monthly interest you would receive from a fixed rate account over 12 months ( or what ever term you are looking for)
  
-put that amount into a high interest easy access account

-put the remainder of the money into a high interest fixed account - (paying interest annually in your case as it offers the best return)

- Withdraw your equivalent interest from the easy access account on a monthly basis.

hth

sx

PragueAddick

Thanks @sparkiemalarkie. Brilliant from Mr Lewis!

For the second time in a couple of days I reflect that every European country needs a Martin Lewis, and most of them don't seem to have one  

BTW above I wrote that Secure Trust are still offering 5.5%. The guy on the phone this morning told me how I could set it up so that a portion of what matures with them on 28.12 can go straight to athe new bond account. It all looked very neat and I was grateful to him. However when I tried it I had difficulty re-loading the home page (you have to do it from there, not logged in, because, IT people) and as I had to go out, I gave up trying. When I returned just now I discovered they'd lowered the rate to 5.26%. Doubtless that's why the homepage wouldn't load at that point. Grr. I turned to Investec and they are still at 5.4% but they only allow max 7 working days to pay into the account so I cannot yet open one.  

auser99

Fixed rates are dropping out so quickly the MSE tables are well off.

1 Year
Kent Reliance, 5.5% to 5.35%
Secure Trust, 5.51% to 5.26%

2 year
Loughborough 5.5% link doesn't work, seemingly replaced by 1 year monthly saver at 5%
Dudley 5.25% not available

3 year
Zenith 5.2% not available, 3 year is now 5%, with 1 year 5.3% and 2 year 5.2%

Carnage.

refluxer

Yes - Smartsave, Secure Trust, United Trust and OakNorth have also reduced some or all of their fixed rates in the last 24 hours.

I actually rolled part of a maturing OakNorth fixed rate bond into a new 5 year bond with them at a loyalty rate of 5.40% a couple of weeks ago and, with the way things are heading, decided to stick some more in yesterday, a matter of hours before the 14 day funding window closed. I don't normally fix for that long, but have decided recently to do so to lock in some of these rates. Their current 5 year bond has just gone down to 3.89%.

From a (very) recent news article...

"Money markets are predicting the Bank of England will reduce interest rates by a whole percentage point to 4.25pc next year. Traders are betting there will be four interest rate cuts in 2024 after official figures showed the economy shrank in October. They now believe rates will drop from their 15-year highs of 5.25pc to 4.25pc before the end of next year."

pecunianonolet

Looks like the spread between new fixes and existing easy access accounts is narrowing and rates plummet ahead of newly released economic data with negative growth and 3 central bank decisions this week. I hope the race to the bottom will not be as fast as the race to the top was and it's more of a soft landing.

DavidAC

The markets don't seem to be listening to (or is that trusting) Andrew Baileys comments about too soon to be talking about rate cuts.

mebu60

DavidAC said:

The markets don't seem to be listening to (or is that trusting) Andrew Baileys comments about too soon to be talking about rate cuts.

If an institution has sufficient funds to meet its obligations why would it offer a rate higher than it felt it needed to to maintain its position? Regardless of its views on Mr Bailey's competence in his predictions!