Should I convert my old-style YBS savings into an online one?

SimonFF

Hi, ages ago (possibly 25+ years ago), I had a saving account with the now-defunct Norwich and Peterborough Building Society, which I kind of forgot of, until about 6 or 7 years ago, when Yorkshire Building Society bought it. Because I didn't live in East Anglia any more and I had a YBS branch right next to me, I converted this account and I started using it every now and again.

It's one of these old-school accounts where you have to go to the branch and use the booklet. Fastidious, but a decent interest rate.

Now, my local YBS branch closed during Covid and I have no nearby branches. My main account is with Halifax, which gives me less than 1%.

I am thinking of converting, or opening a new online only account with YBS.

Is it worth it? The interest would be about 4% and I could use it from anywhere, but (I think) not in branch.

What would you do? Has anybody experience with YBS online accounts? The website looks very bad. It took me 20 minutes to log in. It wouldn't accept my password and had to change it twice.

Thanks.

DRS1

When you log in to YBS online can you see your old school account?  Have you got a linked bank account (eg at Halifax) showing for it?  Does it pay a better interest rate than the 4% one?

By the way even Halifax have savings accounts which pay better than 1%.

Bigwheels1111

I would get an online account with YBS and leave £1 in it.
Because they offer members special offers on reg savers etc from time to time.
The rest of the money I would put in an easy access isa or regular easy access account.
Then fund a regular saver or two.
Principality still offer an 8% £200 a month reg saver for 6 months.
I earned £1378.19 from regular savers this year 24-25.
17 of them as I write this, they range from 5% to 10.4% and £50 to £300 a month.
The cash to fund these sits in an easy access isa with Trading212, Which has earned just over £500 this year.

Make your savings work harder for you.
Look here for best rates, it updates more times a day than mse version.


https://moneyfactscompare.co.uk/

Always select rate order. To see the highest rate.

SimonFF

JamesRobinson48 said:

 One drawback of YBS is that fund withdrawals occur with a day's delay.

What do you mean by that?

SimonFF

DRS1 said:

When you log in to YBS online can you see your old school account?  Have you got a linked bank account (eg at Halifax) showing for it?

What do you mean by "linked"? If I log into YBS I can only see my YBS savings account.

DRS1

SimonFF said:

DRS1 said:

When you log in to YBS online can you see your old school account?  Have you got a linked bank account (eg at Halifax) showing for it?

What do you mean by "linked"? If I log into YBS I can only see my YBS savings account.

If you click on the account you should see a side bar with a list including Transfer and Pay.  Click on that and there should be a line of boxes saying Make  Transfer Manage Payees Manage Payments.  Click on Manage Payees and you should see a list of accounts you can pay from the YBS account with ones outside YBS marked as External.

SimonFF

I decided not to open this account and to close the existing one. The YBS website is terrible to use and it crashed several time. The Android app says is "not compatible" with my device so, bye bye YBS.

EarthBoy

SimonFF said:

JamesRobinson48 said:

 One drawback of YBS is that fund withdrawals occur with a day's delay.

What do you mean by that?

External transfers are not instant.  If you transfer money from a YBS account to an account with a different bank or building society, the money won't arrive in the other account until the following day.

Kniphofia7

I have a few online savers with Yorkshire Building Society and find them very good and easy to use.  The website and app hasn't given me any problems at all.

Olive_Spider

As far as I understand it YBS has 2 versions of every account, the "branch and post" one (with product IDs ending with a 'B') and the "online" one (with product IDs ending with a 'W').

A branch and post account can be registered and then managed online in the same way as an online one and can still be managed in branch or by post, the only difference is that it must be opened in a branch or by post.

The reverse is not true for an online one, once you have opened an account online, you must manage it online.

The question then between branch and post and online is whether you value the ability to resolve problems in a branch more than the convenience of opening online. Originally I opened all of mine by post but eventually I decided to open most of them online and just keep one branch account that I could essentially use as a foot in the door.

Accounts are 'weirdly' (by the standards of a zoomer) hard to open in a branch. You have to book an appointment with the branch manager then go into the back room while he reads you the rules of the account. I'd've thought you could just get a form like with applying by post from the front desk staff...

Hope that helps,