The Top Regular Savers Discussion Thread

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.

flaneurs_lobster

subjecttocontract said:

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

Please don't over-dramatise @TheWoodler's perfectly reasonable observation. Freedom of speech is not being restricted, people are perfectly free to say whatever they like here (within the bounds of legality and the Forum's rules).

The suggestion is that discussion of the methods to be used to circumvent various restrictions on product availability is unwise and is likely to cause the restrictions to be more closely policed and might lead to unavailability to the cohort to whom it was originally directed.

Suggestions made elsewhere that comments here are unlikely to be seen by the product providers is naive, current technology makes finding such material trivial and any organisation with a public presence will have a function doing just that.

subjecttocontract

I see it completely differently, I see the dramatising being orchestrated by @TheWoodler not by myself and that we are both entitled to express our views, subject as you say to legality and forum rules. This is after all a forum where a range of views and opinions will be expressed. My advice would be, get used to it because, I very much doubt it's likely to change.

clairec666

Kim_13 said:

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.

Same thing could be said for current account switching bonuses.

Banks weigh up the pros and cons when offering loss-leaders. Presumably it is of benefit to them, i.e. attracting new and potentially loyal customers, and they are willing to make a loss on other customers who will jump ship when the high rate drops.

WillPS

Dizzycap said:

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.

When were you told this? I guess you either need to get lucky with whoever is processing post or a change of policy has occurred (one way or t'other).

Dizzycap

alfred64 said:

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

Sounds like sour grapes to me and unless your bank / savings are held within a 'Green' account, all and any other types of bank accounts will fall into perceived, non-ethical - Received a paper bank statement recently? It's non-ethical and so the merry-go-round chugs along........

Kim_13

Branch only terms are disappointing, given that the general trend is the number of branches decreasing and not increasing. It seems to be the smaller societies are more likely to release an attractive branch only offering, so of course those that don’t live near any of them (which probably means in/near a reasonably big city) get increasingly disappointed as it is never ‘their turn’ as it were. I have a Coventry BS branch, but they haven’t offered anything unbeatable since the FHS1 announced a rate increase to 5% in 2022/2023 - and that was available online. Also a Nationwide, but they only accept online applications for their RS.

As regards to the Braintree Regular Saver, is the rate not comparable to the Ware Regular Saver? That was launched as celebration of sorts following their refurbishment, if I recall. I found it listed at 4.45% as of June, but the Small Saver appears to have gone down in September, so I’m guessing Ware did also. That it is a three year account is attractive, but that the rate is variable and (judging by Ware) cut with every base rate cut makes it not worth going for unless you live on their doorstep. If it were a fixed rate account, that would be different, as you could judge travel costs against a guaranteed return.

It might be that the target market they are going for are people who aren’t online, as 4% looks very good to people with money in the average high street savings account. Artificially keeping rates lower to deter speculative postal applications would be a shame, as they could deal with that by punishing those who do it (account closed and interest paid at easy access rate, for example) rather than punishing everyone. I’ve never tried it and hope that there are never so few decent offerings that I feel the need to, as my postcode doesn’t qualify as ‘local’ with any society.

Hanley’s staff were probably accepting them until they were told otherwise, and as the account has been going for over a month now, the majority will know not to.

Slinky

With the regards to a local BS branch being overwhelmed with postal applications, if my local BS is anything to go by, they would probably be quite pleased to have something to do. Whenever I walk past there's never more than 3 customers in the branch, today 3 staff behind the counters chatting amongst themselves with not a customer in sight. They have a RS on offer at 5%, they're seemingly not exactly swamped with customers.

mhoc

Just logged onto LLoyds and there is a notice that I will soon be able to see my Halifax accounts as well.

How will they manage to merge the 2 - will they do some sort of name and address sweep?
But what happens if you have a different email and/or mobile assigned to your Halifax than your LLoyds? 

I know that they seem to think it will make things somehow easier for customers but for me I like to have things seperate and change often seems like a negative thing. 
Also I am worried whether in the future having both LLoyds regular savers and Halifax regular saver will even be allowed - even though they are all completely different