Are Fintech’s worth it? Over established banks.

TeaBee72

Following the great rate that Plum offered on their cash isa I opened one and put a sizeable amount into them. A year ok I’m looking to move to a better rate and oh my what a faff

it turns out that as Plum (and allegedly other FinTechs) don’t have the same establishment as high street banks - the process for transfers is clunky. I’m almost two months on to a paper transfer with neither Lloyds or plum really being able to help and each blaming each other ( it appears evidently to be an issue with Plum releasing funds).

I always wandered why people favoured established brands… and thought it was narrow minded. I’m starting to see why. Maybe worth a few pennies less in interest for ease and convenience.

anyoem had similar issues? 

clairec666

Plum seem to be a bit problematic. There's another thread on here about the difficulties of transferring out of Trading 212. It's not impossible, but it's a bit of a faff and some people haven't got the time for that and would happily forego a higher interest rate.

Trouble is, often their rates are quite a chunk higher than established brands, so it's not just a few pounds difference.

I personally keep my "emergency funds" in a Trading 212 ISA, but have avoided putting my long-term savings in there - I'd like the security of a hassle-free transfer out when they drop their interest rate (which they seem to do quite often!) I'm potentially missing out on some higher rates, but it suits me.

grumpy_codger

Complain. There is 15 working days limit for cash ISA transfers.

Albermarle

TeaBee72 said:

Following the great rate that Plum offered on their cash isa I opened one and put a sizeable amount into them. A year ok I’m looking to move to a better rate and oh my what a faff

it turns out that as Plum (and allegedly other FinTechs) don’t have the same establishment as high street banks - the process for transfers is clunky. I’m almost two months on to a paper transfer with neither Lloyds or plum really being able to help and each blaming each other ( it appears evidently to be an issue with Plum releasing funds).

I always wandered why people favoured established brands… and thought it was narrow minded. I’m starting to see why. Maybe worth a few pennies less in interest for ease and convenience.

anyoem had similar issues? 

Remember inbetween new entrants like ( Plum and T212) and High St banks, there is a whole raft of mainly well established smaller players/savings providers. Such as Paragon, Aldermore, Charter, Ford Money etc . Plus various building societies.
Dealing with them is normally very similar to dealing with a High St bank, except that the interest rates are normally better.

Uriziel

OP I am in the exactly same boat as you. 1 month ago I started a transfer and Plum keeps saying that they completed this but Monument keeps saying that Plum is not responding and did not send the money. They are simply scammers and should be closed down.

clairec666

Maybe they've over-stretched themselves by enticing so many new customers with their high rates, and now can't deal with the volume of transfers they have to complete. It was similar with Tembo last month - although they had the decency to say they were suspending transfers in while they worked through the backlog.

friolento

Uriziel said:

OP I am in the exactly same boat as you. 1 month ago I started a transfer and Plum keeps saying that they completed this but Monument keeps saying that Plum is not responding and did not send the money. They are simply scammers and should be closed down.

I know from experience how annoying the long ISA transfers can be. But calling one or both parties spammers and calling for them to be closed down seems not constructive and won’t speed up your transfers.

Have you raised formal complaints with both, Plum and Monument?

MeteredOut

clairec666 said:

Maybe they've over-stretched themselves by enticing so many new customers with their high rates, and now can't deal with the volume of transfers they have to complete. It was similar with Tembo last month - although they had the decency to say they were suspending transfers in while they worked through the backlog.

The issue with Tembo was transfers in, so they can suspend them. The OP is having an issue with transferring out - and a provider cannot suspect transfers out. I suspect Plum have a backlog since they were on the ISA rate leaderboard a year ago, but are now not competetive with their rate, so figure loads of folk are transferring away.

I'm having the same issue, I did transfer the majority of my ISA out a few weeks back, and that went through smoothly, but left £100 in until the bonuses credited to future months, but its now a week since I submitted a request to the new provider to do another transfer, and they're still waiting on Plum.

I do wonder if Plum have made it more difficult for themselves with that £100 clause in their T&Cs , meaning one approach to maximising interest is to partially transfer all but £100, then do another transfer, meaning they've got an elevated number of requests.

But, as to the question on this thread: I still think the higher rates provided by the fintechs easily outweighs these issues and I'll continue to chase the highest rates.

masonic

Plum have obviously created another pinch point for themselves by running a 3 month rate boost promotion (now they are back to a 12 month offer). I do wonder how effective these short-term rate boosts are when the standard rate is so much lower.