Hargreaves Lansdown active savings

ColdIron

A sometimes overlooked advantage is access to the minnows in the market that you'd rather not have a direct relationship with due to customer service, difficulty with verification etc

FatFred66

Section62 said:

NannaH said:

I have a Sipp and ISA with HL and today noticed the Active savings hub,  basically you can have various savings accounts via this hub so you can just use one log in.
They have an Easy access account with Allica paying 4.4% currently, so for 5 minutes faffing online,  our joint EA account paying less than 2% is now in there paying 4.4%,  you can put from £1 - £250k in there, usual fscs protection applies. 

There are EA, limited access and fixed rates available. 

Two things to note -

1)  There can be delays transferring money to/from the 'hub' and the chosen account.  In the case of fixed rate accounts this can sometimes be a week or more.  Money in the 'hub' earns no interest.

2) From time to time HL do cashback incentive offers, but so far these have only been for customers signing up to Active Savings for the first time.  Applying for an Active Savings account when there is no offer on will probably rule you out for one of these incentives for all time.

I've got the 1 year limited access Coventry BS cash ISA through Active Savings. There was £100 cashback which applied whether you were an existing Active Savings account holder or not.

What they neglected to point out was that in order to qualify for the £100 the account had to be funded with £10,000 directly from a debit card into the account. The far more obvious route of funding the AS Hub by debit card and then applying the funds to the account apparently meant I didn't qualify for the £100. They did back down on that when I complained.

I'm expecting more confusion when I eventually come to transfer out. Is my ISA with HL or Coventry BS? If it's with Coventry BS what's my account number?

newatc

FatFred66 said:

Section62 said:

NannaH said:

I have a Sipp and ISA with HL and today noticed the Active savings hub,  basically you can have various savings accounts via this hub so you can just use one log in.
They have an Easy access account with Allica paying 4.4% currently, so for 5 minutes faffing online,  our joint EA account paying less than 2% is now in there paying 4.4%,  you can put from £1 - £250k in there, usual fscs protection applies. 

There are EA, limited access and fixed rates available. 

Two things to note -

1)  There can be delays transferring money to/from the 'hub' and the chosen account.  In the case of fixed rate accounts this can sometimes be a week or more.  Money in the 'hub' earns no interest.

2) From time to time HL do cashback incentive offers, but so far these have only been for customers signing up to Active Savings for the first time.  Applying for an Active Savings account when there is no offer on will probably rule you out for one of these incentives for all time.

I've got the 1 year limited access Coventry BS cash ISA through Active Savings. There was £100 cashback which applied whether you were an existing Active Savings account holder or not.

What they neglected to point out was that in order to qualify for the £100 the account had to be funded with £10,000 directly from a debit card into the account. The far more obvious route of funding the AS Hub by debit card and then applying the funds to the account apparently meant I didn't qualify for the £100. They did back down on that when I complained.

I'm expecting more confusion when I eventually come to transfer out. Is my ISA with HL or Coventry BS? If it's with Coventry BS what's my account number?

I don't think you can transfer out (except to a HL S&S ISA) at the moment. Have to hope that will change before you need to transfer.

FatFred66

newatc said:

I don't think you can transfer out (except to a HL S&S ISA) at the moment. Have to hope that will change before you need to transfer.

It's in their conditions that you can transfer out. 

I think ISA managers are obliged to transfer out on request anyway, it's one of the standard features of ISAs. It's transfers in that they can refuse.

newatc

You are correct Fatfred. On their main text, it doesn't give this an option but I've now read the small print (T&Cs) and it does say you can but warns it may take up to 30 days.

TheWoodler

I use HL Active Savings as part of my savings portfolio and really like them. Customer service seems efficient - very quick to respond by secure message to any enquiry etc., which also takes any customer service issues with any provider out of the equation. 

As PP have stated, they can sometimes offer products that you can’t get direct. Where they do offer products also available direct from the bank, the threshold through HL can be more favourable, eg £1k minimum with one bank  rather than the £5k minimum that bank advertises on its website.

Very occasionally they have market-leading rates (but you have to be quick to snap them up!)

Steeveeh

Is the HL active savings a cash ISA product or does it fall outside of that? 

Steeveeh

Reading this (can't post the link)

Discover better ways to save with Active Savings

You can now save up to £20,000 each tax year free from UK income tax through Active Savings, with our new Cash ISA. Tax rules can change and benefits depend on personal circumstances.

That does not make it very clear as to whether the money I deposit into a product via Active Savings is going to contribute to my 20k limit or not though :S 

Doctor_Who

HL Active savings offer a range of easy access and fixed term accounts (non-ISA), plus a couple of cash ISAs. If you use the cash ISA option it's the same as any other cash ISA and uses up your £20K annual allowance. 

Steeveeh

cheers, of the 39 products I can see in the active savings interface - none of them mention Cash ISA. So I am assuming if I want to use that allowance i need to use the HL cash ISA option which (at the moment) only offers the 2 products by Coventry BS.