Best Savings Rates - Not for Me

MX5huggy

A local branch doesn’t mean your money is kept there, it means they’ve got a legacy computer system. 

Band7

mebu60 said:

andyhicks88 said:

Virgin Money have the highest Easy Access Rate currently (their ISA) and have several other times over recent months, Santander had the highest EA rate recently, Barclays have a 5% account, Halifax and Lloyds have one of the top regular savers? So basically, we do see the high street banks on the table.

Not forgetting HSBC's Online Bonus Saver at 3% for up to £10k.

Now that's what I would call a dodgy account! Not in the sense that you can lose your money, as they are FSCS protected, but in the sneaky way your interest rate will drop to next to nothing in the month you make a withdrawal.

talexuser

Deleted_User said:

Northern Rock account holders thought that

And RBS, Bradford & Bingley, Alliance & Leicester, Abbey, is a well known name really much safer?

Swipe

Band7 said:

mebu60 said:

andyhicks88 said:

Virgin Money have the highest Easy Access Rate currently (their ISA) and have several other times over recent months, Santander had the highest EA rate recently, Barclays have a 5% account, Halifax and Lloyds have one of the top regular savers? So basically, we do see the high street banks on the table.

Not forgetting HSBC's Online Bonus Saver at 3% for up to £10k.

Now that's what I would call a dodgy account! Not in the sense that you can lose your money, as they are FSCS protected, but in the sneaky way your interest rate will drop to next to nothing in the month you make a withdrawal.

Nothing wrong with that as long as you are aware of the T&Cs. You obviously don't put money in there that you intend to withdraw and if you do, you withdraw the whole amount on the 1st of the month. I have two of them from a few years ago.

Band7

Swipe said:

Band7 said:

mebu60 said:

andyhicks88 said:

Virgin Money have the highest Easy Access Rate currently (their ISA) and have several other times over recent months, Santander had the highest EA rate recently, Barclays have a 5% account, Halifax and Lloyds have one of the top regular savers? So basically, we do see the high street banks on the table.

Not forgetting HSBC's Online Bonus Saver at 3% for up to £10k.

Now that's what I would call a dodgy account! Not in the sense that you can lose your money, as they are FSCS protected, but in the sneaky way your interest rate will drop to next to nothing in the month you make a withdrawal.

Nothing wrong with that as long as you are aware of the T&Cs

There will be plenty of people who are either unaware, or forget, or don't dare withdrawing the lot on the 1st 

Albermarle

Who has heard of these so called banks, let alone know where in the world they are based?
If they are in the MSE list, they are not 'so called banks' - they are banks with a UK banking licence, so fully covered by the FSCS £85 K compensation .
All the regular posters on this forum will have heard of nearly all of them, and some will have saved with nearly all of them, as they typically have better interest rates.

I’m sure like most older savers I would prefer to visit, or in the least know of, the place I am investing my nest egg with, rather than just sending it off into the ether with a click of a button.

Well I am a certain age and it is a long time since I went in bank branch, or visited any kind of financial institution, pension provider etc. Times have moved on.

Sensory

As long as it's not a scam, your money is covered by the FSCS in case anything goes wrong.

Times change and societies evolve. The last time I was in a bank I was queueing for customer service and overheard a couple opining amongst themselves that it would be easier if banks just wrote in books and on paper instead of using computers. I believe some people still don't trust banks at all and prefer to keep cash at home.

Section62

Zonda111 said:

I don’t understand why only obscure online, and in my view potentially dodgy, financial institutions are listed in the ‘Best Savings’ section.  Who has heard of these so called banks, let alone know where in the world they are based?

Isn't the whole point of these listings to make people aware of perfectly respectable financial institutions (offering higher rates of interest) that they may not have heard about before?

If all they did was to remind people of the 'big name' banks that they already knew about, then nobody would learn anything new.

Zaul22

If you want to see the high street banks on the list, just sort it by lowest first. 

t1redmonkey

The problem is if you stick to 'big name' banks, then more often than not, they take your money for granted and therefore do not offer decent savings rates.  Generally better to be more open to switching around for the best rates, as long as the 'obscure' bank is FSCS protected, then there's little risk of anything going wrong with your money.