The Top Regular Savers Discussion Thread

Bridlington1

surreysaver said:

ForumUser7 said:

7sefton said:

SH88SH88 said:

Good news ... a new RS ! ... bad news, restrictions galore and a lowish rate.

Saffron BS have a new Braintree branch, to celebrate they've launched the Braintree RS. Branch only for opening (specifically the Braintree branch) .. 36 months (unusual), account can be managed by phone/webchat/post/branch ... max £250 per month,  rate 4% . 

How did you find about this launching so quickly, apparently it only opened this morning?

Can’t speak for OP, but Saffron emailed me

Me too ...

The account also appeared on moneyfacts at 12:07 this morning. At 4% the account's rate is too low to make it onto p1 of this thread under the current thresholds, but as ever I shan't rule out including it depending depending on how the savings landscape evolves over the coming weeks/months.

Slinky

alfred64 said:

Regular savers are not known for being the most ethical. They abide by the 'greed is good' philosophy.

That's not very fair. Savers have suffered from many years of miserable interest rates, you can't blame anyone for wanting to make up for some of it now they've improved.  Looking back at spreadsheets, I've had fixed rates of 0.6% and 0.63%.  I made the mistake of locking in for 5 years at 1.5% which has only just paid out.

I've only discovered the better rates for regular savers across this past year, and will happily try and make up for some of the poor rates in the past.

castle96

Ethics... Conscience.... I just want the best rates/return, if I have to bend the rules/T&Cs, I just don't care!

Chaykin

s71hj said:

Well.. A massive vote of thanks is in order to the collective knowledge of this forum that led me to print 2 generic application forms and post them to the Stone branch for the Hanley branch regular saver. Accounts now show in both mine and my wife's Hanley apps. 

Hanley Economic BS

Lucky you! I failed with Biddulph branch but reposted yesterday (with 2nd class stamp) to Stone as well. Fingers crossed!

Out of curiosity - when did you post? 1st or 2nd class?

happybagger

castle96 said:

Ethics... Conscience.... I just want the best rates/return, if I have to bend the rules/T&Cs, I just don't care!

Quite. The product is made available to take up, so what's the issue with doing so?
I haven't come across anyone whinging I buy milk in 12s at Farmfoods yet, maybe they should.

s71hj

Chaykin said:

s71hj said:

Well.. A massive vote of thanks is in order to the collective knowledge of this forum that led me to print 2 generic application forms and post them to the Stone branch for the Hanley branch regular saver. Accounts now show in both mine and my wife's Hanley apps. 

Hanley Economic BS

Lucky you! I failed with Biddulph branch but reposted yesterday (with 2nd class stamp) to Stone as well. Fingers crossed!

Out of curiosity - when did you post? 1st or 2nd class?

Saturday 1st

allegro120

Slinky said:

SH88SH88 said:

Good news ... a new RS ! ... bad news, restrictions galore and a lowish rate.

Saffron BS have a new Braintree branch, to celebrate they've launched the Braintree RS. Branch only for opening (specifically the Braintree branch) .. 36 months (unusual), account can be managed by phone/webchat/post/branch ... max £250 per month,  rate 4% . 

You'd have to be pretty rich to have exhausted all the other better possibilities than this one. Maybe the good folk of Braintree are particularly well heeled.

.. or pretty negligent not to have any EA accounts paying above that rate.

TheWoodler

happybagger said:

It is quite funny how they trumpet this RS as a celebratory product though, surely you have to concede that?
Whether local or not, branch visitor or not, their products have become pretty naff over the last year or so.

If you read the email - and the website piece - they lead with the branch opening and only once use the word ‘special’ for the product, which is literally secondary to the main thrust of the marketing. I’d hardly call that trumpeting.  If they’d led with the product then you might have a point. 

And anyone who expects any financial institution to consistently offer good rates is always likely to be disappointed. Some never do, or are flashes in the pan, but others may more regularly have good offers. I just happen to prefer to take a rather more pragmatic view of these things. 

As it happens, I do think a more competitive rate would have been a great inducement to locals, but I’m also willing to bet that they’ve seen the noise around people trying to work around ‘branch only’ terms on here. The net result is they don’t want an influx of people putting in applications by other means that causes administrative work for themselves. Pegging it at a poorer rate means such a scenario is less likely. I quite agree with @clairec666 that it’s disrespectful to staff who have to deal with it.

So if people think it’s a poor offering, then it might be worth considering whether some of the views expressed on here have contributed to that business decision, and that locals lose out because of the actions of a few further afield attempting to circumvent branch only conditions for attractive rates - and whether we will see practice starting to tighten up. 

I suspect it already is, and as to the point whether ‘it’s not really branch only if you can open it by other means’ - some of us haven’t attempted it by other means but take it at face value! Saying openly ‘I bend the rules - I don’t care’ as someone has done here is just the sort of statement that attracts attention. I’ll leave it there. 

allegro120

Slinky said:

alfred64 said:

Regular savers are not known for being the most ethical. They abide by the 'greed is good' philosophy.

That's not very fair. Savers have suffered from many years of miserable interest rates, you can't blame anyone for wanting to make up for some of it now they've improved.  Looking back at spreadsheets, I've had fixed rates of 0.6% and 0.63%.  I made the mistake of locking in for 5 years at 1.5% which has only just paid out.

I've only discovered the better rates for regular savers across this past year, and will happily try and make up for some of the poor rates in the past.

0.6%! That's low.  I remember about 5 years ago when BoE rate was 0.1% I had EA account paying 0.7%.  I locked £1000 in Gatehouse via Rasin at 2% for 1 year, it was a decent rate at he time and throughout the term.  With £50 bonus from Rasin it worked out as 7%.  I've never locked anything for more than 18 months, 5 years is far too long unless you have a crystal ball

Essex123

flaneurs_lobster said:

Section62 said:

Finding Saffron's latest offering poor doesn't equate to not supporting Saffron in their efforts to expand their branch network.  We can say 'good on Saffron' for investing in this community, whilst being unimpressed with their marketing suggesting this product is 'special' and somehow doing members a favour.

Would it not be more supportive of its local community to offer 6-7% as a branch-only product? Perhaps limiting it further by insisting on a CM6 postcode? 

There's a branch of the Nationwide 300m from the Saffron BS branch, their RS pays 6.5%.

Mmm well CM6 is Great Dunmow, and the Saffron branch there closed a few years ago when they had a cull of a few branches.

Braintree is CM7, and the town is hardly underserved having NatWest, HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, Halifax. Santander and Nationwide all in town. 

This 4% product is underwhelming.  The branch not opening on a Saturday is also disappointing, and in line with Brentwood which often seems to be ‘temporarily closed’ on a Saturday.