The New Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

friolento

pandh said:

They may not be alone in doing this, but they are not within their rights.

If you are saying that they are contravening their licences, or breaking the law, you should report them to the FCA or to the Police.

Hopefully we can return to discussing top easy access savings in this thread

pandh

masonic said:

pandh said:

I don't think Martin is the right person to be looking into the security practices of savings providers. It is not his area of expertise.

Things may have changed, but back in the early days when I was using Chip, I don't think they were asking for more than account name and balance to link and verify an account. The whole wealth score thing would give me pause today, but fortunately there are other options available.

It was more about a product being recommended by MSE where there's at least some assumption that they're handling private data correctly. All current evidence says they're not.

I don't believe there is any evidence that they are not handling data in line with their legal and regulatory obligations. Just speculation from an individual that they may be involved in clandestine activities, based on evidence that other companies have misused data in the past. Such an accusation could be levelled at any organisation. MSE should not be choosing which products and services it recommends on the basis of rumour and speculation. Only the FCA has the powers to obtain actual evidence of wrongdoing. MSE has no choice but to rely on information provided by the firm and the fact that they are authorised by the FCA.

It is obviously up to the customer to decide what information they are comfortable sharing, and to choose products that fit their needs. Others should not be deprived from taking advantage of those products just because the more paranoid among us (and I include myself in that number) don't consider it a good enough trade-off at the present time.

Good grief, what a toxic attack.

I can't comprehend how you would consider asking customers to send bank statements by unsecured email to be in line with regulations.

You're also putting words into my mouth since I never said MSE should remove the listing by Chip. Rather that it should be checked and an appropriate notice added. Just as they already do for other recommendations.

Clearly I wrong to think I could voice a concern here as I've had only had one helpful response.

pandh

friolento said:

pandh said:

They may not be alone in doing this, but they are not within their rights.

If you are saying that they are contravening their licences, or breaking the law, you should report them to the FCA or to the Police.

Hopefully we can return to discussing top easy access savings in this thread

Yes, that's being handled, but I had some hope that others could be better informed. Bad idea.

masonic

pandh said:

masonic said:

pandh said:

I don't think Martin is the right person to be looking into the security practices of savings providers. It is not his area of expertise.

Things may have changed, but back in the early days when I was using Chip, I don't think they were asking for more than account name and balance to link and verify an account. The whole wealth score thing would give me pause today, but fortunately there are other options available.

It was more about a product being recommended by MSE where there's at least some assumption that they're handling private data correctly. All current evidence says they're not.

I don't believe there is any evidence that they are not handling data in line with their legal and regulatory obligations. Just speculation from an individual that they may be involved in clandestine activities, based on evidence that other companies have misused data in the past. Such an accusation could be levelled at any organisation. MSE should not be choosing which products and services it recommends on the basis of rumour and speculation. Only the FCA has the powers to obtain actual evidence of wrongdoing. MSE has no choice but to rely on information provided by the firm and the fact that they are authorised by the FCA.

It is obviously up to the customer to decide what information they are comfortable sharing, and to choose products that fit their needs. Others should not be deprived from taking advantage of those products just because the more paranoid among us (and I include myself in that number) don't consider it a good enough trade-off at the present time.

Good grief, what a toxic attack.

I can't comprehend how you would consider asking customers to send bank statements by unsecured email to be in line with regulations.

I was thinking it was going that way, which is why I responded as I did. 

The original claim was that "they want access to bank accounts to view transactions so they can sell these to data brokers for highly targetted marketing". The bank statement request was mentioned later and seemed to be secondary to the main concern about unlawful use of data obtained through Open Banking.

On the bank statement workaround for those declining to give access through OB, it is relatively easy to encrypt documents and provide the password to them securely via the chat function in the app. Customers will only be asked to send a bank statement if they have already refused the more secure OB method.

The FCA itself, in response to a negligence complaint I made against it, recently asked me to send my full name, address and bank details to it by email so that it could arrange to pay me compensation. It has also advocated for insecure methods of Strong Customer Authentication, such as sending a one-time code by SMS. It is well known that SMS is wide open to being subverted, both using the well known SIM swap attack, but also the much less well known exploitation of the SIM roaming system to misdirect these messages. The FCA does this in the interest of consumer choice, but customers of a firm cannot opt-out of the insecure method being offered to anyone trying to gain access to their accounts nefariously. I don't think MSE can reasonably put a warning in place for every bank that engages in this practice (as it's pretty much all of them), but it is really not their place to do so as they are not security analysts.

pandh said:

You're also putting words into my mouth since I never said MSE should remove the listing by Chip. Rather that it should be checked and an appropriate notice added. Just as they already do for other recommendations.

Clearly I wrong to think I could voice a concern here as I've had only had one helpful response.

It wasn't clear from your earlier post exactly what you wanted MSE to do. I've already mentioned that MSE has neither the technical expertise or means to conduct any sort of investigation into the security practices of the firms they list in their best buy tables, so whether it is to add a warning or pull the account completely (both of which would have the effect of putting customers off, perhaps unduly), it seems to be a non-starter.

Voicing of concerns and subsequent discussion of them is welcomed, but sometimes contrary views may be expressed by other contributors. That's all part and parcel or participating in a discussion forum like this.

oz0707

I've just gone to log onto Charter. I had email the other day that Easy Access 47 rate is reducing from 4.03% to 3.78%. Yet when I go on the charter website and click their easy access link they are showing an account available Easy Access 56 @ 4.57%. Obviously it would be a variable rate but what is going on. Have I not been on the ball enough in updating to the latest rate as you used to have to do at Cynergy or are all the rates coming down soon?

qbadger

masonic said:

...but sometimes contrary views may be expressed by other contributors.

Au contrarie mon frere!

jaypers

oz0707 said:

I've just gone to log onto Charter. I had email the other day that Easy Access 47 rate is reducing from 4.03% to 3.78%. Yet when I go on the charter website and click their easy access link they are showing an account available Easy Access 56 @ 4.57%. Obviously it would be a variable rate but what is going on. Have I not been on the ball enough in updating to the latest rate as you used to have to do at Cynergy or are all the rates coming down soon?

This is quite common with Charter and you have to keep an eye on the different issues. Can be a little frustrating. Your best bet if you are leaving your money there would be to open up the new issue and just do an internal transfer from old to new.

schiff

qbadger said:

masonic said:

...but sometimes contrary views may be expressed by other contributors.

Au contrarie mon frere!

Au contraire mon frere (accent grave au dessus des deuxieme lettres e SVP)

oz0707

jaypers said:

oz0707 said:

I've just gone to log onto Charter. I had email the other day that Easy Access 47 rate is reducing from 4.03% to 3.78%. Yet when I go on the charter website and click their easy access link they are showing an account available Easy Access 56 @ 4.57%. Obviously it would be a variable rate but what is going on. Have I not been on the ball enough in updating to the latest rate as you used to have to do at Cynergy or are all the rates coming down soon?

This is quite common with Charter and you have to keep an eye on the different issues. Can be a little frustrating. Your best bet if you are leaving your money there would be to open up the new issue and just do an internal transfer from old to new.

Surely at 4.57 they are towards the top rates without silly apps or emailing statements to people? I don't use any app only accounts. 

Or are they planning a drop on the 4.57 acc soon too,

jaypers

oz0707 said:

jaypers said:

oz0707 said:

I've just gone to log onto Charter. I had email the other day that Easy Access 47 rate is reducing from 4.03% to 3.78%. Yet when I go on the charter website and click their easy access link they are showing an account available Easy Access 56 @ 4.57%. Obviously it would be a variable rate but what is going on. Have I not been on the ball enough in updating to the latest rate as you used to have to do at Cynergy or are all the rates coming down soon?

This is quite common with Charter and you have to keep an eye on the different issues. Can be a little frustrating. Your best bet if you are leaving your money there would be to open up the new issue and just do an internal transfer from old to new.

Surely at 4.57 they are towards the top rates without silly apps or emailing statements to people? I don't use any app only accounts. 

Or are they planning a drop on the 4.57 acc soon too,

They are Web only. They don’t have an app. It’s an Easy Access account so it could change anytime. If they do, you can move your money whenever you want to. Only Charter will be able to confirm when they might change any rates but certain issues seem to keep their rates longer than I’ve sometimes expected.