The New Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

flaneurs_lobster

SickGroove said:

When can you put the required £500 into Zopa to trigger the 4.75% bonus rate every month? 

I open it yesterday, put the £500 into the main biscuit account which triggered the bonus, so can I do this on the 1st of every month or does it need to be the day I triggered the initial 4.75% bonus rate ie 21st of every month?

Looks like the "reset date" (Zopa's term) is the date of the boosted account being offered, so the 21st. My app shows I have to add £500 before 21 Nov to "lock in your 4.75% AER bonus rate" .

janusd

SickGroove said:

When can you put the required £500 into Zopa to trigger the 4.75% bonus rate every month? 

I open it yesterday, put the £500 into the main biscuit account which triggered the bonus, so can I do this on the 1st of every month or does it need to be the day I triggered the initial 4.75% bonus rate ie 21st of every month?

when enabled in the app, the first month is included without the need to deposit the £500 (At least for me as an existing CA holder) - if you hadn't put the £500 in yesterday, you could have waited until the 1st and that would have enabled the bonus for 21 Nov - 21 Dec.

AlwaysLearnin

Presumably you could effectively make it calender month if that suits you better, by putting £500 in at the beginning of Dec, and the start of each month thereafter?

SnowMan

mebu60 said:

SnowMan said:

mebu60 said:

BreakingGlass said:

Coventry

I’ve just opened the new 4 Access at 4.3%, funded with the £1 balance (plus over £2k interest) from closing my old 4 Access, which was at 4.2%.

Annoyingly I am still waiting for the new account opened earlier this morning to appear so that I can follow suit. 

I managed to open the 4 access - 1 year and it appeared immediately and I was able to close and transfer my old 4 access closing balance into it. So surprising that you are having problems.

I even logged out and logged back in again immediately to Coventry but no joy. Just required a bit of patience which is a virtue I do not possess, all done now.

In between opened a West Brom 4 Access Saver Issue 4 at 4.28% as insurance for when the Issue 1 currently at 4.4% either reduces or ends on 31:12:25 (note the Issue 4 has a maturity date of 31:01:27 to avoid the obvious issues with Issue 1 finishing at the year end the day before a bank holiday but the Issue 4 date is a Sunday so again, an odd easily avoidable choice). 

Not the only thing that sets West Brom apart. Although Coventry and West Bromwich are geographically relatively close they are miles apart in their application process. Coventry use your existing details. And, after a slight delay, it's all done. Despite being logged in to West Brom I had to re-enter all my information. And now they hope to let me know within 3 working days whether my application is approved! 

I am also intrigued as to how sign-in will work. Currently it is the Issue 1 account number, DoB and a PIN. Will that then display both accounts? Can I use either account number to log in? What happens when Issue 1 is closed? 

I've got the West Brom 4 access (issue 2) and 4 access (issue 3) and I can log in either through the issue 2 or issue 3 account number (the pin and dob are the same in both cases).

When I opened a second account with West Brom a while back (so different two accounts to those above) I input my address without the county in the address (county is optional in addresses), and while everything else was the same as my original application, they rejected my application. When I rang them up eventually I worked out that they were treating my address as different just because one had the county in it and one didn't. Initially they just told me my application details were different, and it was only when I insisted that nothing had changed, did I discover it was the lack of county causing the issues. Unhelpfully they refused to resolve things and insisted I had to apply again from scratch. At the time you couldn't even see your address when you logged in so it would have been impossible for me to know what address they held for me to enable me to apply again had I not insisted that my details were the same. At least now you can see the address they hold so you don't have to remember whether you originally entered the county or not.   

flaneurs_lobster

AlwaysLearnin said:

Presumably you could effectively make it calender month if that suits you better, by putting £500 in at the beginning of Dec, and the start of each month thereafter?

Zopa Easy Access

 Having already deposited by 21 Nov? Suppose that works if you are committed to only funding accounts at month-start.

Middle_of_the_Road

huw01 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

huw01 said:

I moved from Chase to Ulster for the 4.5%, not sure I can be bothered with the extra ffaff of opening a Zopa account for an extra 0.25%. Both are variable with a top up rate for 12 months. Who knows where we will be in 6 months time with either.

Why do you not have the Zopa CA/RS already? No hard search and £300/mth 7.1% RS. What's not to like?

Because I have Regular Savers with Monmouthshire (7% and 6% £1500 per month), First Direct (7% £300), Co-op (7%, £250), Nationwide (6.5% £200)

Those Monmouthshire accounts really help, and do reduce the need of opening extra accounts with lower deposit limits, so I agree, there comes a point when avoiding the extra admin of having accounts with increasing institutions can be preferable.

huw01 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

huw01 said:

I moved from Chase to Ulster for the 4.5%, not sure I can be bothered with the extra ffaff of opening a Zopa account for an extra 0.25%. Both are variable with a top up rate for 12 months. Who knows where we will be in 6 months time with either.

Why do you not have the Zopa CA/RS already? No hard search and £300/mth 7.1% RS. What's not to like?

There are other things to be getting on with in life. I know this is a money saving website but I think I'm doing ok and I'm not losing a second of sleep in missing out on a few extra quid of interest.

I totally agree, being near or having retired, one might have different objectives to someone saving for their first property 

CuparLad

Not sure if this has been mentioned:

Monument Bank Easy Access Savings Boosted Rate (4.41% AER inc 0.64% boost to 17/11/26)

Available to new customers only. Min 25K balance to get this rate.

@soulsaver

Rheumatoid

huw01 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

huw01 said:

I moved from Chase to Ulster for the 4.5%, not sure I can be bothered with the extra ffaff of opening a Zopa account for an extra 0.25%. Both are variable with a top up rate for 12 months. Who knows where we will be in 6 months time with either.

Why do you not have the Zopa CA/RS already? No hard search and £300/mth 7.1% RS. What's not to like?

Because I have Regular Savers with Monmouthshire (7% and 6% £1500 per month), First Direct (7% £300), Co-op (7%, £250), Nationwide (6.5% £200), BofS & Halifax (£250 x 2, 5.5%) and Santander (£200, 5%). So by cycling money from an easy saver into those each month and as I am retired now I still need to live and have money to move from the easy saver to my current account each month. I know that the Zopa is 7.1% but come on, there becomes a point when you have to say I'm happy with what I have and I cannot honestly be bothered chasing the extra 0.1% or 0.25% percentages.

There are other things to be getting on with in life. I know this is a money saving website but I think I'm doing ok and I'm not losing a second of sleep in missing out on a few extra quid of interest.

I am retired and usually can't be bothered with aggro for a few quid but as I already had a biscuit (!) shifting 85k from ulster was a two minute job for an extra £200 - it the differential lasts.

SickGroove

flaneurs_lobster said:

SickGroove said:

When can you put the required £500 into Zopa to trigger the 4.75% bonus rate every month? 

I open it yesterday, put the £500 into the main biscuit account which triggered the bonus, so can I do this on the 1st of every month or does it need to be the day I triggered the initial 4.75% bonus rate ie 21st of every month?

Looks like the "reset date" (Zopa's term) is the date of the boosted account being offered, so the 21st. My app shows I have to add £500 before 21 Nov to "lock in your 4.75% AER bonus rate" .

Yeah, mine also says that...so do I need to put another £500 in before 21/11, even through I already did this yesterday to activate the bonus rate...

I can put in another £500 whenever but just want to make sure I trigger the bonus rate every month, so would like a confirmed date so I can just pop it in my calendar to do it.

janusd

flaneurs_lobster said:

AlwaysLearnin said:

Presumably you could effectively make it calender month if that suits you better, by putting £500 in at the beginning of Dec, and the start of each month thereafter?

Zopa Easy Access

 Having already deposited by 21 Nov? Suppose that works if you are committed to only funding accounts at month-start.

having already funded, the problem is if you miss an anniversary deadline, then you lose the bonus rate for a month.

I deposited yesterday, so I think i'm ok until 21st December (next month is ticked but greyed out)... I don't think I need to deposit on the 1st Nov (though I will to fund the RS), so I believe I can now wait until 1st December to make a deposit to enable the rate for 21st Dec - 21st Jan... but i'll keep an eye on the app next month to check.