natwest digital saver worth it?

allegro120

RG2015 said:

Just a further thought / question on this account.

If you deposit £150 and later in the month withdraw £150, can you put £150 back in during the same month?

Or would this count as a £300 deposit during the month rather than a net £150 pay in during the month?

I don't think this trick will work. Quote:

• You can only pay up to £150 into the account each calendar month. This includes your standing order and any extra money you put in. Round Ups won't count towards your monthly £150 limit. Any amount over this limit may be automatically moved to your current account. If you repeatedly try to pay more than £150 each month into the account, you will be given 60 days’ notice to close the account.

Stargunner

aaj123 said:

Stargunner said:

dealyboy said:

Hi @Stargunner ...

Stargunner said:

RG2015 said:

I have £3,544 in RBS and NatWest Digital Regular Savers earning 6.17%.

In 21 months I could have £10,000 earning £50 per month. There is no other easy access account paying this amount.

The problem is that in order to get the best return you shouldn’t ever withdraw any money. Hence it is more like an emergency fund than an easy access or regular saver.

NatWest RBS must know that most subscribers will not touch their funds, so it guarantees them both growth and capital on the majority of their balances.

This is a very clever marketing tactic.

You could have the £10k in there a lot sooner than that if you make use of the double round ups.

... I don't know about @RG2015, but if you mean by micro transaction methods discussed in this forum, for me that feels like 'gaming the system' which is why I will stick with natural transactions whilst having double-roundups enabled on both accounts of course.

When you open multiple donor bank accounts, that you only ever use to switch to another back for financial incentives, is that not classed as ‘gaming the system’ then?

I'd just say it’s difficult for a bank to prove reasonably that this was 'gaming' whereas a barrage of 0.01 deposits is gaming in most eyes.

It doesn’t need to be a barrage and they don’t all need to be 0.01p. You can do a few at various amounts like £1.01, £2.01 or £3.01 which still give the same rounding up benefits

RG2015

aaj123 said:

RG2015 said:

Just a further thought / question on this account.

If you deposit £150 and later in the month withdraw £150, can you put £150 back in during the same month?

Or would this count as a £300 deposit during the month rather than a net £150 pay in during the month?

Good question and I am keen to know too. Their terms are ambiguous on this one. It only says 'You can make as many deposits as your like into your Digital Regular Saver, so long as you don’t go above £150 a month.'

Also, does their month get defined as calendar month or the one starting on anniversary of account opening?

I am pretty sure NatWest / RBS work on calendar months.

Equally, I am pretty sure that it is a maximum of £150 rather than a maximum net of £150. The question though is if I would rely on a response on this site.

There have been posts here from people claiming to have deposited a lump sum of £5,000 and it neither being rejected nor subsequently returned to their current account.

This may or may not be true and may have just been NatWest control systems not working at some point and them not acting retrospectively to reverse the transaction.

RG2015

allegro120 said:

RG2015 said:

dealyboy said:

RG2015 said:

I have £3,544 in RBS and NatWest Digital Regular Savers earning 6.17%.

In 21 months I could have £10,000 earning £50 per month. There is no other easy access account paying this amount.

The problem is that in order to get the best return you shouldn’t ever withdraw any money. Hence it is more like an emergency fund than an easy access or regular saver.

NatWest RBS must know that most subscribers will not touch their funds, so it guarantees them both growth and capital on the majority of their balances.

This is a very clever marketing tactic.

... I suspect the interest rate will be lower by then, but also lower inflation.

Yes, this is likely but even now there is nothing better.

£3,544 currently earns £17.72 and each month this increases by £1.50

I have only £3,241. I must have missed something at some point. I probably was 1 month late to start. 

I remember everyone stopping at £1,000 when that was the limit for the high interest rate. Those who had continued to add £150 every month would have a much larger amount by now.

Alexland

OldScientist said:

Long term real total returns can be found in the Credit Suisse Global Investment Returns Yearbook (the summary edition is free). You are right, they are not 7%, but the UK had real returns of 5.4% (1900-2021) and World had 5.3% (1900-2020, although that is in USD and with US inflation - increase it a bit for the century long decline in the GBP-USD exchange rate and decrease it a bit for the larger inflation seen in the UK).

Without wanting to take this thread too off topic when you look at stock valuation metrics during that period they were generally lower than we see in the market today which is likely to lower forward returns at least in the medium term. I've based my plans on 2- 3% real return before fees during my lifetime but if we see 5%+ then I would be delighted.

allegro120

RG2015 said:

allegro120 said:

RG2015 said:

dealyboy said:

RG2015 said:

I have £3,544 in RBS and NatWest Digital Regular Savers earning 6.17%.

In 21 months I could have £10,000 earning £50 per month. There is no other easy access account paying this amount.

The problem is that in order to get the best return you shouldn’t ever withdraw any money. Hence it is more like an emergency fund than an easy access or regular saver.

NatWest RBS must know that most subscribers will not touch their funds, so it guarantees them both growth and capital on the majority of their balances.

This is a very clever marketing tactic.

... I suspect the interest rate will be lower by then, but also lower inflation.

Yes, this is likely but even now there is nothing better.

£3,544 currently earns £17.72 and each month this increases by £1.50

I have only £3,241. I must have missed something at some point. I probably was 1 month late to start. 

I remember everyone stopping at £1,000 when that was the limit for the high interest rate. Those who had continued to add £150 every month would have a much larger amount by now.

That explains.  I stopped when reached £1000 until they increased to £5000.

Wheres_My_Cashback

allegro120 said:

RG2015 said:

allegro120 said:

RG2015 said:

dealyboy said:

RG2015 said:

I have £3,544 in RBS and NatWest Digital Regular Savers earning 6.17%.

In 21 months I could have £10,000 earning £50 per month. There is no other easy access account paying this amount.

The problem is that in order to get the best return you shouldn’t ever withdraw any money. Hence it is more like an emergency fund than an easy access or regular saver.

NatWest RBS must know that most subscribers will not touch their funds, so it guarantees them both growth and capital on the majority of their balances.

This is a very clever marketing tactic.

... I suspect the interest rate will be lower by then, but also lower inflation.

Yes, this is likely but even now there is nothing better.

£3,544 currently earns £17.72 and each month this increases by £1.50

I have only £3,241. I must have missed something at some point. I probably was 1 month late to start. 

I remember everyone stopping at £1,000 when that was the limit for the high interest rate. Those who had continued to add £150 every month would have a much larger amount by now.

That explains.  I stopped when reached £1000 until they increased to £5000.

Some also closed the original saver and then reopened to be able to take part in the prize draw which wasn't there at the start.

dealyboy

Stargunner said:

dealyboy said:

Hi @Stargunner ...

Stargunner said:

RG2015 said:

I have £3,544 in RBS and NatWest Digital Regular Savers earning 6.17%.

In 21 months I could have £10,000 earning £50 per month. There is no other easy access account paying this amount.

The problem is that in order to get the best return you shouldn’t ever withdraw any money. Hence it is more like an emergency fund than an easy access or regular saver.

NatWest RBS must know that most subscribers will not touch their funds, so it guarantees them both growth and capital on the majority of their balances.

This is a very clever marketing tactic.

You could have the £10k in there a lot sooner than that if you make use of the double round ups.

... I don't know about @RG2015, but if you mean by micro transaction methods discussed in this forum, for me that feels like 'gaming the system' which is why I will stick with natural transactions whilst having double-roundups enabled on both accounts of course.

When you open multiple donor bank accounts, that you only ever use to switch to another back for financial incentives, is that not classed as ‘gaming the system’ then?

... sorry @Stargunner I didn't mean to ignore your question, I've been offline for a couple of hours.

I am not being critical, just that 'it feels for me' like exploiting a loophole but not wrong ... yes I do open multiple 'donor' accounts for switching purposes but to me that feels like my taking advantage of being allowed to hold multiple accounts and being allowed to switch accounts under CASS. These features are well defined in T&Cs and product specifications which can be and are changed frequently. I believe my actions can be seen in credit files and of course can be refused.

I do not close the new accounts but take advantage of any features like introductory interest rates such as Nationwide FlexDirect's or linked RS such as the NatWest Digital Regular Saver. Of course if I end up doing my main banking at one of these banks/building societies because they are so good then they and market forces have won.

HHUK

I fired off a minor 'barrage' of NatWest debit card deposits over the last few days (the majority being £1.01 each to a NSI Direct Saver account).  Having read the preceding comments, I was wondering whether that would constitute gaming the system, but have just received the following push notification:

Nice work. You've topped up your savings by £22.78 with Round Ups this week, just by using your card on account ending ####.

Wonder if it will continue to be possible to get away with that indefinitely.

dealyboy

HHUK said:

I fired off a minor 'barrage' of NatWest debit card deposits over the last few days (the majority being £1.01 each to a NSI Direct Saver account).  Having read the preceding comments, I was wondering whether that would constitute gaming the system, but have just received the following push notification:

Nice work. You've topped up your savings by £22.78 with Round Ups this week, just by using your card on account ending ####.

Wonder if it will continue to be possible to get away with that indefinitely.

Hi @HHUK ... Well I thought they were clamping down on it (I spoke to them a few months ago), but apparently not, people have been discussing it for at least a year or two and some regularly maxed out on the double round-ups (1p --> 99p x 2 ru, x 100 per month iirc).

I do think that this is taken into account when reviewing accounts though and may be considered abnormal or abuse of the facility. I seem to remember two or three cases where accounts were closed (with notice) 'for commercial reasons'. Having said that, as you say, yours was only a minor barrage.