The Top Fixed Interest Savings Discussion Area

slinger2

StayinAlive said:

Could someone explain how to calculate the AER for a 6 month bond with gross rate of 4.50%?

I thought the formula was ((1+0.045/6)^6*1). But that gives me 4.59% (in excel) but the concensus seems to be 4.55%. Am I missing a step?

But if the gross rate refers to a single interest payment after 6 months the formula is (1+0.045/2)^2-1) which is 4.55%.

StayinAlive

Interesting to note on HTB's web site they're offering a 6 month bond issue 16 with gross 4.45% AND aer 4.45%.

But, if you download the summary pdf, it says issue 16 is gross 4.46% with aer 4.51%. Talk about confusing!

Pompeydave1967

Another drop from Atom -looking very uncompetitive with all fixes now.
instant saver ok .

InvesterJones

refluxer said:

Just a heads up that Oxbury have some existing customer-only bonds available that are higher than the best rates around at the moment. You only see these when logged in to online banking and they don't tend to appear on comparison sites, which is why I thought they were worth highlighting as they could be easily missed if you were currently looking for a 3-12 month fix. At the rate their competitors' rates are dropping, these may not be available for too much longer, I suspect.

Existing customer-only bonds...
3 months - 4.71% 
6 months - 4.73% 
1 year - 4.78%

If you're not an existing customer, you can usually access these rates immediately by opening another account. Unfortunately, all their accounts have a minimum balance of £1000 and their easy access rates aren't the best, although there's probably no reason why you couldn't open one and then close it again once the bond is set up. The alternative would be to open one of their other fixed rate bonds of course, which are all at the top of the respective rate tables (with the exception of the 5 year bond which is pretty close).

Bonds that are available to all...
18 months - 4.65%
3 years - 4.62%
4 years - 4.54%
5 years - 4.53%

Oxbury have existing customer-only accounts available quite often and they're a good bank to be with if you favour fixed rate accounts in my experience. You can bank online via their site or an app, although you will need the app for authentication to log in to the site on a browser. Payments into their accounts are usually instant, which I really like.

It looks like at some point in the last few days they've have gone down again:
existing customer (AER):

3 month 4.61%

6 month 4.62%

1yr 4.63 %

all:

18 month 4.61%

2yr 4.53%

3yr 4.51%

4yr 4.42%

5yr 4.40%

Still pretty competitive, but not a huge outlier this time!

law_1990

coop pulled their 1 year fix @ 4.62%

BooJewels

I'm getting towards the end of a 2 year fix with FirstSave and interest is paid on the last working day of the month, but it seems to have been creeping into the next month recently.  It was certainly late last month, but this was down to the Barclays issues at that time.  I had an email from FirstSave, saying that due to my interest being paid late, they would make a compensation payment equivalent to 3 days additional interest, to be included with my next scheduled interest payment.

I got the February payment on Friday, but it was exactly the amount I'd expect for a 28 day month - if there was an extra 3 days of interest, it would have made it the same amount as a 31 day month - around £20 difference.

Has anyone else had the extra interest - I think everyone should have, as they always pay on the last day of the month, so all accounts would have been equally affected by the same outage - the situation wasn't unique to me.

StayinAlive

Family Building Society 1 year Bond @ 4.57% AER.

Anyone opened an a/c with them recently and could share experience? Time taken, id proof, postage required etc.

pecunianonolet

StayinAlive said:

Family Building Society 1 year Bond @ 4.57% AER.

Anyone opened an a/c with them recently and could share experience? Time taken, id proof, postage required etc.

Opened an easy access account a few weeks ago with them. Got all I needed through email to set up online banking and the account could be funded straight away. Around 10 min effort (includes reading some bits of the T&Cs). You've got to wait for a letter with a code to enable withdrawals to your nominated account but that letter came after like 3-4 days.

BooJewels

BooJewels said:

[snip as it's just above]
Has anyone else had the extra interest - I think everyone should have, as they always pay on the last day of the month, so all accounts would have been equally affected by the same outage - the situation wasn't unique to me.

Just in case anyone else was interested in this and is as daft as me - turns out the redress payment was 3 days of interest on the late interest itself - not 3 days additional interest as I misinterpreted it and posted above. 

So I did get it after all - all 9p of it.  I'm not sure that really qualifies as the kind of 'redress' I was anticipating and hoping for.  I shall spend it wisely.  Or I might just waste it on sweeties.

mebu60

Kudos to Cynergy. Opened 1 year bond 10 March at 4.58%. They have emailed to say as still in funding window when there is a higher rate they are honouring that, 4.6%. Issue number jumps from 245 to 248.