The Top Regular Savers Discussion Thread

alfred64

Regular Saver accounts are building societies loss leaders. And yes Principality know about Money saving expert forum. It was mentioned when I opened my accounts in branch. 
When the bank rate in U.S is reduced Wednesday it is highly likely U.K will follow suit next week (18th) so saver rates generally will be reduced further. Enjoy.

shirley999

I can't help but think that Principality are the smart ones here.  When they need the funds, they allow the duplicates to go through.  They can just cherry pick according to what funds they need.  As someone mentioned, it's possibly a slow period, lending-wise, coming up to Christmas, so we're seeing the majority of duplicate accounts being declined right now. If it suits 'us', we continue to opt into a duplicate account in the hope they need the funds.

Eco_Miser

clairec666 said:

If, as it seems, Principality are getting strict on multiple regular savers, then they're well within their rights to do so - we've had a lot of luck with their loopholes and it was fun while it lasted. Presumably they have been aware of this for a while, and have weighed up the costs of adding a few extra lines of code to their system (IF customer has this issue already, disable this options, ELSE allow this option, etc.) but I'm surprised they're tackling the problem with manual intervention on each account, surely paying the staff that are handling this will cost them more in the long run.

The customer has this issue already part involves at least one database query, possibly several, and needs to be done for each option, so possibly lots of extra lines of code in a simplistic ad hoc manner, or a re-think on how they generate and check the available options, for cleaner, neater code, but a longer development time. Depends on whether they have an in-house programmer, an external programming team, or are just buying in a platform system with their branding added.

For comparison,consider how long it takes for the forum team to get this forum tweaked when needed.

masonic

GetRichOrDieSaving said:

I currently have 4x issue 4 RS with Principality and this obviously equals £800 per month deposits totalling £4,800 total over the duration of all 6-month terms. By taking away the ability to renew a second, third or even fourth issue at maturity means that deposits will drop to just £200 a month and £1,200 in total for each issue I own. 

Principality make money off my money and
I can get a little cut of the pie for my saving efforts. Other than the issue of ‘rule breaking’ why would they not want my money? It’s just going to go to another bank or building society. Or are they expecting us to renew into a poor offering account, which none of us are going to do…. 

Am I being naive to think that Principality are going to miss out as just as much as us over this? 

These are probably loss-making accounts. Otherwise there'd be no reason to have a low limit or short term. They'd probably need to be lending at double digit rates to leave enough after bad debt and costs to sustain a 7.5% payout rate. That is sub-prime lending, which is very high risk and not something a lender would want much of on their balance sheet. Very easy to lose your shirt as those of us dabbling in P2P lending discovered.

Banks and BS do offer unprofitable products to cross-sell other products and it must work in general or they wouldn't do it. Another example of this is the current account with rewards or perks.

clairec666

Eco_Miser said:

clairec666 said:

If, as it seems, Principality are getting strict on multiple regular savers, then they're well within their rights to do so - we've had a lot of luck with their loopholes and it was fun while it lasted. Presumably they have been aware of this for a while, and have weighed up the costs of adding a few extra lines of code to their system (IF customer has this issue already, disable this options, ELSE allow this option, etc.) but I'm surprised they're tackling the problem with manual intervention on each account, surely paying the staff that are handling this will cost them more in the long run.

The customer has this issue already part involves at least one database query, possibly several, and needs to be done for each option, so possibly lots of extra lines of code in a simplistic ad hoc manner, or a re-think on how they generate and check the available options, for cleaner, neater code, but a longer development time. Depends on whether they have an in-house programmer, an external programming team, or are just buying in a platform system with their branding added.

For comparison,consider how long it takes for the forum team to get this forum tweaked when needed.

As I've dabbled in a bit of coding myself, it would be interesting to have a sneak peak at Principality's system, their underlying databases, etc. I would guess that their programming is not done in house; or if it was, tagging on extra features to existing code can create messy code or lead to unexpected problems, so they may want to avoid implementing it for now and will incorporate it next time they give their system a major overhaul. Just speculating here, I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes.

WillPS

I suspect like most building societies it's a hodgepodge of systems with an ancient ledger appliance at the core of it. Again, speculation, but this seems to be the norm. 

Principality's customer facing stuff appears to be bespoke, but of course that doesn't mean they made it themselves or even that it is "theirs".

pecunianonolet

30 pages to go until we reach the limit here. Wonder if we can fill another 30 pages with Principality chat? So much speculation about reasons and things we don't have a clue about. We basically serve potential fixes on a silver platter, all they need to do is read here. Their PR agency probably is reading here and creating reports, which is totally normal and I have ordered PR agencies to do similar things in the past, just a different industry. 

Just be happy about extra interest you could generate in the past and everyone always knew and clicked to acknowledge T&C's so if it's not happening anymore be happy about the opportunity in the first place, not matter the reasoning behind. 

trickydicky14

Melton B.S
How do I withdraw money from my Regular saver 5 please. When I log in all I can do is move money internally. I wish to send it to my bank. Thanks for any help.

shirley999

trickydicky14 said:

Melton B.S
How do I withdraw money from my Regular saver 5 please. When I log in all I can do is move money internally. I wish to send it to my bank. Thanks for any help.

Click on the 3 horizontal lines, top left.  Select payments, faster payments.  If you're not seeing the same as me, perhaps you haven't set up your nominated account, in which case I'd phone them on 01664 414141.

Middle_of_the_Road

pecunianonolet said:

30 pages to go until we reach the limit here. Wonder if we can fill another 30 pages with Principality chat? So much speculation about reasons and things we don't have a clue about. We basically serve potential fixes on a silver platter, all they need to do is read here. Their PR agency probably is reading here and creating reports, which is totally normal and I have ordered PR agencies to do similar things in the past, just a different industry. 

Just be happy about extra interest you could generate in the past and everyone always knew and clicked to acknowledge T&C's so if it's not happening anymore be happy about the opportunity in the first place, not matter the reasoning behind. 

What happens when the limit is reached?