Savings Accounts

deirdrechristina

I have noticed that to open many of the savings accounts and ISAs advertised now, you have to have an app to earn the higher rates of interest, no alternative way for opening these accounts is offered. This seems unfair to me, would be interested to know what others think. 

MisterMotivated

I don't see anything unfair about it, though I do wonder what difficulties they might face (besides cybersecurity risks) that put them off allowing customers to log in via a regular web browser...

eskbanker

deirdrechristina said:

I have noticed that to open many of the savings accounts and ISAs advertised now, you have to have an app to earn the higher rates of interest, no alternative way for opening these accounts is offered. This seems unfair to me, would be interested to know what others think. 

Unfair in what way exactly?

And I'd have thought that 'many' is an exaggeration, although wouldn't disagree with 'some', but there's certainly plenty of choice available for those who don't wish to use apps for whatever reason....

cymruchris

deirdrechristina said:

I have noticed that to open many of the savings accounts and ISAs advertised now, you have to have an app to earn the higher rates of interest, no alternative way for opening these accounts is offered. This seems unfair to me, would be interested to know what others think. 

A business chooses how it wants its customers to operate the account it offers. There are still accounts out there that need a passbook and a branch visit. You could argue that that's unfair as you live 400 miles away.

Technology will forever march on, and with smartphones capable of running apps available for around £50, if you really want the 'extra interest' offered by app based banking - it wouldn't take long to recoup your money if your balance was big enough.

Is there a reason why you don't want to use these app based services?

Nardy

deirdrechristina said:

I have noticed that to open many of the savings accounts and ISAs advertised now, you have to have an app to earn the higher rates of interest, no alternative way for opening these accounts is offered. This seems unfair to me, would be interested to know what others think. 

Which ones require mobile Apps? I have high interest accounts with 3 banks and 3 building societies and I don't use any phone apps. I manage the 3 banks and 2 of the BS accounts using Firefox on my laptop. The other BS account is done over the counter. I'm not aware of missing out on any high interest rates by not having the appropriate apps on my phone.

BooJewels

I personally don't dislike apps per se - some finance ones I do use daily and like their convenience.  But I like to have the option of using a larger desktop PC monitor screen and keyboard for the trickier bits.  I have Reynauds and find touch screens problematic for some tasks and find the small screen size can make some screen text absolutely tiny.  So I prefer, for example, setting up a new payee with a long reference on a computer rather than my phone.  I'm happy to mix and match, but doubt I'd use a finance product that only used an app.

Some people do have physical limitations that might make an app unsuitable for them.

subjecttocontract

I don't use apps, I don't (think) I have a smart phone, I don't have any problems opening & operating lots of accounts. I just use an Amazon Fire tablet which suits me fine.

What is the definition of a 'smart' phone ?

Ocelot

subjecttocontract said:

I don't use apps, I don't (think) I have a smart phone, I don't have any problems opening & operating lots of accounts. I just use an Amazon Fire tablet which suits me fine.

What is the definition of a 'smart' phone ?

I think it's one of those phones that's all screen, and doesn't have physical buttons, which you can run applications (apps) on.