The Top Regular Savers Discussion Thread

Bobblehat

Essex123 said:

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.

Braintree Saturday morning banking customers can pop into Barclays, Halifax, Santander and Nationwide! I wish I had that range of choice in my town that is slightly larger than Braintree ... my choice is zero on a Saturday and one choice on Mon - Fri!

Maybe the Banks/BSs that offer 7%+, 6%+ and 5%+ RSs to all, don't visit here and offer those rates in sheer ignorance of the shenanigans that some go to in order to bag branch-only or multiple copies of RSs? Somehow, I doubt it! Not that I'm criticising those that do jump through hoops to get that extra RS or two, far from it, just saying it may not be a real excuse to offer poor rates.

Born2Save_3

Sepulveda said:

Funding Santander Monthly Saver by electronic transfer from an external account, rather than SO from a Santander current account - does anyone know if its possible to do that? 

I know that setting up a SO from a Santander current account is in the T&Cs, but is it enforced? For example the TSB regular saver lets you fund from external accounts so I've been doing that for the past year (despite it saying in the T&Cs that a SO from TSB current acc is required). Does Santander allow that too or do they enforce the rules?

Just thought I'd check. My Santander current account currently has £1 in it!

I think there is some benefit from keeping the SO; can't recall what, maybe to do with roll over renewal. Anyway, I adjusted my SO to a penny, and on the 1st of the month do a manual transfer from my Santander CA as the SO is mid month.  IIRC the Santander RS can be paid to externally, but it requires a Sort, Account and the reference is a Building Society style account number, ie XXX999999XXX or something like that.  There is some previous discussion on here specifically about what you ask.

I do via my Santander CA to give it some activity and so I login at least once a month to check for anything else happening and to check on new accounts offered, just in case there is something unknown and good.

As a point of note, you can overpay the Santander RS; one month I paid the full amount twice, and there were no issues raised.  Currently I'm overpaying by a penny a month.  Maybe there will be consequences at the end of 12 months. 

More generally, the ability to exceed the monthly limit on RS would be an interesting discussion topic ?

HTH

jd84

Santander don't give a sort code or account number for the RS, similar to how Nationwide used to be.

You only get the roll number so its not officially payable externally, although I believe someone figured out a way.

An ongoing standing order from their current account will keep the RS active after 1 year, rather than being converted to a lower easy access.

They will either send the balance to the current account automatically, or you can manually close the EA and start over again.

Can't say I've ever tried to pay too much in, I would expect there to be something in the terms and conditions against this.

Slinky

allegro120 said:

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

0.6% was with Charter Savings Bank and was closed in April 2022. Probably a one year fix. 

0.63% was Shawbrook, again closed April 22, a one year bond.

It was the only time I've gone for a 5 year fix, and it was £30K at 1.5%.....  won't be doing that again.

s71hj

Anyone tried opening the West Bromwich Fixed Rate Regular Saver (Issue 7) by sending an application form to a branch? 

Bridlington1

s71hj said:

Anyone tried opening the West Bromwich Fixed Rate Regular Saver (Issue 7) by sending an application form to a branch? 

There used to be a link to apply online but this was disabled ages ago when it went to branch only.

West Brom haven't got a generic application form from what I can see so you'd need to guess the link to the application form for the account, this isn't available on their website, so unless they decide to open it back up to online or post application, it's branch opening only.

cricidmuslibale

alfred64 said:

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

In all honesty I find this comment to be very wrong and really quite offensive, and although I’m fully aware that @Slinky has already responded very well to it, carefully and thoughtfully showing it to be way off the mark,  I would like to have my say too if that’s ok?

Firstly, how on earth does the above poster know exactly how ethical or not individuals who save some, or even all, of their savings in regular savings accounts are?
It is entirely possible that many regular saver using folk are highly ethical overall, not just in their approach to saving money but much more broadly in terms of how they choose to live their lives!

Secondly, I certainly do not abide by the ‘greed is good’ philosophy and I strongly suspect the vast majority of other regular saver users certainly do not do so either! If I/we had this mindset of trying to make as much money as possible and more than we’re ever likely to need as savings, surely I/we would place the vast majority of our funds in high risk and/or unregulated investments instead, in the hope of making much higher returns than even the highest paying regular savings accounts will ever generate!

Thirdly, from c. early 2009 to early 2022 the returns on savings accounts of all types were very mediocre at best and usually much much worse than this! We are talking interest rates from c.0.1% to c.2% at most, and to obtain a rate of c.2% actually often involved saving in certain interest paying current accounts instead of actual savings accounts. In other words, savers had to endure c.13 years of their hard earned money gaining next to nothing in savings accounts and often losing its value in real terms when inflation was taken into account!

So I honestly do think that each and every regular saver user that has made the most of the decent regular saver interest rates that have been available during the last 3 years or so, should only be congratulated for trying to make the very most of their savings while good savings rates remain available! (Hopefully for at least a little longer yet.) After all, 3 years of even very good savings returns only very slightly makes up for 13 years of mainly very poor returns indeed!

Kim_13

alfred64 said:

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

I struggle to see how using a Regular Saver fully in line with the terms and conditions is unethical. They may be loss leaders, but where no loopholes (more accounts than permitted by the T and Cs, posting an application for a branch only account) are used, the accounts are being used as intended. 

Maybe they didn’t envisage people opening more of them than there are months in the year, but they don’t exclude this either (and attempting to dictate what you can and can’t hold with other providers would be unenforceable and not exactly ethical either.) The average user of Regular Savers probably has 1 or 2 with their main current account/savings provider, which is hardly greedy.

subjecttocontract

TheWoodler said:

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. 

I think it's important not to restrict freedom of speech just because you don't like someone else's views.

Dizzycap

WillPS 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. 

Result! Glad they haven't slammed the doors shut.

I posted one of my Hanley branch RS application to the Stone branch and they wouldn't open it without a visit in person, so well done if you've managed to get a branch RS opened by post.