NS&I 1 Year Guaranteed Growth Bonds and Guaranteed Income Bonds at 6.20%

CaveBird

Anyone else had problems paying by debit card? We’ve tried 3 times unsuccessfully over the last 2 days to open some bonds. We got a large sum from an inheritance that we want to lock away until our mortgage fixed rate ends in 2025 but the card payment keeps being declined. My bank have said they’re not blocking it and my only options are to either send NS&I a cheque or open an NS&I Saver first (which will take up to 10 days for approval).

NedS

CaveBird said:

Anyone else had problems paying by debit card? We’ve tried 3 times unsuccessfully over the last 2 days to open some bonds. We got a large sum from an inheritance that we want to lock away until our mortgage fixed rate ends in 2025 but the card payment keeps being declined. My bank have said they’re not blocking it and my only options are to either send NS&I a cheque or open an NS&I Saver first (which will take up to 10 days for approval).

Are you exceeding some daily limit on the card or account? Have you tried opening multiple bonds for smaller amounts. Not sure how large you have tried, but maybe try reducing the value to see if a smaller transaction will go through.

gt94sss2

CaveBird said:

Anyone else had problems paying by debit card? 

Which bank does the debit card belong too?

Some, such as HSBC, are better for large card transactions. Banks may have limits that most bank staff are not aware of.

One alternative may be buying bonds online in smaller amounts.

lr1277

CaveBird said:

Anyone else had problems paying by debit card? We’ve tried 3 times unsuccessfully over the last 2 days to open some bonds. We got a large sum from an inheritance that we want to lock away until our mortgage fixed rate ends in 2025 but the card payment keeps being declined. My bank have said they’re not blocking it and my only options are to either send NS&I a cheque or open an NS&I Saver first (which will take up to 10 days for approval).

A few weeks ago somebody was complaining about sending money using a debit card. I am a bit hazy on the details but i think they banked with Halifax and wanted to send money to NS&I.

When their transaction was declined, they contacted Halifax and found the debit card limit on all types of transactions was £25k.

I made the comment that should they choose to, they could not buy 2 first class tickets to New York on BA as these cost in excess of £30k. They agreed with me.

My understanding of the bonds is that you can buy in tranches if there bonds left to be bought. As there a fixed and limited number of bonds, between each transaction, you run the risk the bonds run out. But I suppose that could also happen if you were able to buy all the bonds you wanted in one go.

Now I can't remember if the £25k limit was per day or per transaction.Perhaps you should call your bank and ask the question?

CaveBird

Thanks for the replies. The card is with Santander, I spoke to their telephone banking team to look at the card/account and they confirmed there were no limits on either. We were trying to buy the maximum allowed by Debit Card (£99,999), we received the proceeds from the sale of my late mother in laws house 6 months ago and have been holding on for a good interest rate to get it invested, it’s been sitting in a 2.5% easy access account while we hold our nerve!

I think I’ll try buying some smaller amounts, we just wanted to try and minimise the number of bonds so that we can keep track of them. We have £200,000 to invest and I’d much rather have 2 £99k bonds than 8 £25,000 to keep track of!

friolento

CaveBird said:

Thanks for the replies. The card is with Santander, I spoke to their telephone banking team to look at the card/account and they confirmed there were no limits on either. We were trying to buy the maximum allowed by Debit Card (£99,999), we received the proceeds from the sale of my late mother in laws house 6 months ago and have been holding on for a good interest rate to get it invested, it’s been sitting in a 2.5% easy access account while we hold our nerve!

I think I’ll try buying some smaller amounts, we just wanted to try and minimise the number of bonds so that we can keep track of them. We have £200,000 to invest and I’d much rather have 2 £99k bonds than 8 £25,000 to keep track of!

Could you not transfer the £200k in two Faster Payments from Santander to an NS&I Direct Saver, and then fund one of the NS&I bonds in one go from the Direct Saver?

What is your tax status, would you have to pay tax on the interest from £200k?

worriednoob

Just a quick update to let you know that my NS&I GGB account is now open with the money and the name corrected.  Thanks to everyone that helped and advised me - much appreciated. 

Also I appreciate that people on here have stated that the NSS&I application process is simple and I guess it would have been same for me too, but what complicated the matter was the fact that the online website couldn't recognise my postcode, which meant I had to call them directly.  Then the person on the phone made crucial errors in spelling my name and email and didn't double-check.  This subsequently caused the ID check to fail and all the rest of issues I mentioned previously.

So going forward, I highly advise those that do the application over the phone to double or even triple-check that their names and their email addresses are spelt correctly - This will save you a lot of headache and problems.

southone

CaveBird said:

Thanks for the replies. The card is with Santander, I spoke to their telephone banking team to look at the card/account and they confirmed there were no limits on either. We were trying to buy the maximum allowed by Debit Card (£99,999), we received the proceeds from the sale of my late mother in laws house 6 months ago and have been holding on for a good interest rate to get it invested, it’s been sitting in a 2.5% easy access account while we hold our nerve!

I think I’ll try buying some smaller amounts, we just wanted to try and minimise the number of bonds so that we can keep track of them. We have £200,000 to invest and I’d much rather have 2 £99k bonds than 8 £25,000 to keep track of!

Santander select currant account has a 25k debit limit but you can do 4 a day to same destination, max 100k a day

You could open a NS&I Direct Saver load 4, 25K and open from that to get your 100k or larger amounts

CaveBird

I did look at opening an NS&I saver but the website says it will take 7-10 days to approve and I’m concerned the bond may go before that, particularly if they’re likely to have high volume of applications right now.

CaveBird

friolento said:

CaveBird said:

Thanks for the replies. The card is with Santander, I spoke to their telephone banking team to look at the card/account and they confirmed there were no limits on either. We were trying to buy the maximum allowed by Debit Card (£99,999), we received the proceeds from the sale of my late mother in laws house 6 months ago and have been holding on for a good interest rate to get it invested, it’s been sitting in a 2.5% easy access account while we hold our nerve!

I think I’ll try buying some smaller amounts, we just wanted to try and minimise the number of bonds so that we can keep track of them. We have £200,000 to invest and I’d much rather have 2 £99k bonds than 8 £25,000 to keep track of!

Could you not transfer the £200k in two Faster Payments from Santander to an NS&I Direct Saver, and then fund one of the NS&I bonds in one go from the Direct Saver?

What is your tax status, would you have to pay tax on the interest from £200k?

Yes we will have to pay tax. I’m a standard rate tax payer and husband is a high rate, we’ve already both maxed out our ISA allowance (locked away in a one year fixed rate at 5.5%). My income is only a few thousand under the 40% threshold so I’ll get to pay 20% tax on a portion of my share of the savings and the rest will be at 40%.

Our plan is to pay off our mortgage when it comes up for renewal in 2025, we’re only paying 1.48% on it now so makes sense to lock away this money in a high interest savings bond until we need it and earn some extra with the interest. If we’ve done our sums correctly we should have made about £20k in interest, after tax, between now and Oct 2025 when the mortgage rate ends.