Maturing first direct regular saver disappeared from FD account list

intalex

dealyboy said:

I received £137.05 interest for 367 days into my 1st Account (on request) plus an extra 50p..ish in the 'Savings Account' on maturity completion, two or three days later.

Wow, I guess I do stand corrected, and maturity does happen when manually triggered.

And I've now re-calculated my own interest and I was indeed credited with interest until today (last night inclusive), so probably lost out about 69p per delay-day by nudging FD into triggering maturity this morning.

masonic

intalex said:

masonic said:

Short-circuiting the maturity process can therefore only reduce the number of days you are entitled to interest at 7% on the maximum balance vs 5+% elsewhere.

As manual as FD appear to be with some of their tasks, I still think the maturity step is automated on a fixed date and interest is paid into the RS promptly on that date, so if they take an extra day or two to transfer funds into the 2% account, I can't imagine they go back and add some top-up interest at 7% or re-compute the earlier paid interest, before moving the funds across. The best they would do is to backdate the transfer to the same maturity date on which the interest at 7% for the year was paid.

In your case, have you checked that you've received 7% for more than 365 days total, like for a 2-day delay did they actually pay interest equaling 367 days at 7%? Does the amount ever exceed £136.50? And is this automatically reflected in the transferred funds without any discussion or complaint?

Like I said in my previous post, interest was paid up until the point the money appeared in my savings account on Sunday afternoon. They actually paid interest at 7% on the Saturday (the 366th day . The maturity balance then appeared before the end of the next day without me having to contact them at all. If there was a delay and the maturity process wasn't completed on the Sunday (which, TBH I was hoping for), I would have done as @dealyboy and ensured I was paid at 7% for every full day the money wasn't available to me.

If I contacted them on Saturday morning and got them to manually close out the account then, I wouldn't have been entitled to Saturday's interest as the money would not be in the account at the end of that day. My question to you was whether you received interest for today, despite withdrawing the balance one day earlier (I'm assuming you opened on 15th May 2023, making today your 366th day). Because that would mean you'd be earning interest on the same money in two different places today, which would leave you up about 50p.

intalex

masonic

My question to you was whether you received interest for today, despite withdrawing the balance one day early (I'm assuming you opened on 16th May 2023, making today your 365th and final day of the term). Because that would mean you'd be earning interest on the same money in two different places today, which would leave you up about 50p.

As above, my interest was calculated inclusive of last night which was the 365th night of the term as my start date was 15 May 2023. But yes, I accept the point that interest continues to accrue at 7% until they manually trigger the maturity. Hard to believe an award winning bank is this manual.

masonic

intalex said:

masonic

My question to you was whether you received interest for today, despite withdrawing the balance one day early (I'm assuming you opened on 16th May 2023, making today your 365th and final day of the term). Because that would mean you'd be earning interest on the same money in two different places today, which would leave you up about 50p.

As above, my interest was calculated inclusive of last night which was the 365th night of the term as my start date was 15 May 2023. But yes, I accept the point that interest continues to accrue at 7% until they manually trigger the maturity. Hard to believe an award winning bank is this manual.

Thanks, it is good to confirm this as if they'd paid you for today as well without you needing to keep the money in the account, that would have been an interesting tactic.

What I find harder to believe is they seem to be doing these manual things over the weekend.

TheBanker

jameseonline said:

What I'm confused about is the app is giving me mixed messages, I've had the payout for my regular saver yet app is telling me it's maturing & it's also telling me it's matured 🤷

The person who does the updates has gone for their lunch break part way through processing your maturity. They'll be back to finish it later

intalex

Another annoying thing about the manual process is when they'll open the next one. I was able to apply yesterday once my maturing one disappeared from app banking, but so far no sign of it being opened despite the first £300 waiting in my current account ready to be collected.

jameseonline

First Direct emailed me earlier, basically wanting me to start another 🤣.

Part of me wants to give them a reply about what the app says.

wmb194

intalex said:

Another annoying thing about the manual process is when they'll open the next one. I was able to apply yesterday once my maturing one disappeared from app banking, but so far no sign of it being opened despite the first £300 waiting in my current account ready to be collected.

That's funny, there's such a random element to these. I applied early this morning and when I checked this afternoon it was open and funded.

intalex

masonic said:

Thanks, it is good to confirm this as if they'd paid you for today as well without you needing to keep the money in the account, that would have been an interesting tactic.

I do have to point out that my calculations used a denominator of 365 throughout and landed at the precise interest figure of £135.61 (factoring in actual monthly deposit dates when 15th fell on a weekend or bank holiday). So technically, I did receive a full year's interest in just 365 days of a 366-day year if that makes sense, because it seems the product is based on 365 days and not calendar year.

wmb194 said:

That's funny, there's such a random element to these. I applied early this morning and when I checked this afternoon it was open and funded.

Did you have a regular saver mature recently and possibly pending full closure? Again an assumption, but I feel like the (invisible) matured regular saver requires a manual step to close down fully even if it's emptied earlier, and this extra step might be why it takes them longer to open a new one vs someone who didn't have this extra step or who had the closure step completed sooner before applying for a new one.

Bottomline, they really need to get things more systemised / automated, each year I continue to see FD persist with the same manual and random process around regular savers, which for this day and age is difficult to understand.

wmb194

intalex said:

masonic said:

Thanks, it is good to confirm this as if they'd paid you for today as well without you needing to keep the money in the account, that would have been an interesting tactic.

I do have to point out that my calculations used a denominator of 365 throughout and landed at the precise interest figure of £135.61 (factoring in actual monthly deposit dates when 15th fell on a weekend or bank holiday). So technically, I did receive a full year's interest in just 365 days of a 366-day year if that makes sense, because it seems the product is based on 365 days and not calendar year.

wmb194 said:

That's funny, there's such a random element to these. I applied early this morning and when I checked this afternoon it was open and funded.

Did you have a regular saver mature recently and possibly pending full closure? Again an assumption, but I feel like the (invisible) matured regular saver requires a manual step to close down fully even if it's emptied earlier, and this extra step might be why it takes them longer to open a new one vs someone who didn't have this extra step or who had the closure step completed sooner before applying for a new one.

Bottomline, they really need to get things more systemised / automated, each year I continue to see FD persist with the same manual and random process around regular savers, which for this day and age is difficult to understand.

My last one matured a week and a half ago so there was a decent gap between them.