HL Active Savings

Carefulspender1

I'm looking to get peoples thoughts on the HL Active Savings account. I already have a SIPP with HL but have also got money sitting in my bank's savings account earning a very small amount of interest. I was considering putting £10k of that into an Active Savings account because of the ease of moving from one savings account to another as rates change, especially not having to go through the hassle of opening new accounts all the time. I definitely want easy access in the event I need to draw on the savings.

I'd really appreciate some feedback from the lovely people here on your experiences or thoughts on Active Savings. 
I'd also like to know if I should go for a cash Isa or is that not necessary as the interest earned would be less than the savings personal allowance of £1K each year?
Finally they do say on the site that if you want to withdraw money from your savings it's paid into your bank account one day after the money has cleared in the cash hub - have I got this right and has anyone heard of issues with this?

Any comments or advice would be gratefully received. Many thanks.

jimjames

Seems ok to me, I don't use them but my dad does and it seems to work well

DRS1

Switching from account A to account B is not always quick especially if you are using the fixed rate issues.  So your cash can be sitting for some days in the cash hub earning no interest if you are not careful.  I imagine it is less of an issue for the easy access ones.

If you have headroom for this year's ISA then use it.  Check the interest rates but ISAs don't always pay lower rates than non ISAs

Or you could set up an S&S ISA.

Malchester

As with all of these platforms rates are not usually the best. Better rates can nearly always be found by going direct. However platforms do offer a wider range of fixed rate terms, including 1 month, 2 months etc. A fixed rate account is the same inside or outside a platform and the term cannot be broken. As DRS1 says an issue with platforms is having funds sitting in non interest paying accounts as you switch between accounts.

FWIW I have never used a platform (although have a HL Active savings account) preferring to do it myself and, if I'm honest, I enjoy the process.

LHW99

I found it a bit of a rigmarole to set up an Active Savings as I didn't have another HL account. Also, to use it for a cash ISA I had to add cash to an HL S&S ISA (the hub?) then select a default account, then transfer from the one to the other.

Withdrawal worked fine, but took a couple of days. There is still a couple of £ in it, but I doubt I shall use it in future.

OldScientist

We currently use HL a non-ISA active savings accounts (in an effort to simplify our cash savings from the 10 banks they, at one point, resided in).

1) Opening the account was quick and easy
2) Getting cash into the hub is easy (various methods available). It appears within minutes.
3) Opening savings accounts is straightforward, but as others have noted there is a delay from opening to before the cash appears in the new account. For easy access accounts this usually appears to be a day, for fixed rate accounts it can be several days (although it does depend). There can be a one day delay getting money out of the easy access accounts too. I've not had any fixed accounts mature yet (the first one is later this month), so don't yet know how long that will take.
4) I tested withdrawing money back to my bank account, it arrived the next day (it might even have been the same day).
5) As others have said, the rates are not usually the highest available (e.g., currently HL's best 1 year fixed rate is 4.32% compared to 4.5% available elsewhere), but are generally better than the 'established names' on the mse savings page.

ColdIron

OldScientist said:

4) I tested withdrawing money back to my bank account, it arrived the next day (it might even have been the same day).

I'm pretty sure that every transfer from the cash hub has been same day for me. There is undoubtedly a cut off time but for me they are usually planned ahead so I've never left it too late

Carefulspender1

DRS1 said:

Switching from account A to account B is not always quick especially if you are using the fixed rate issues.  So your cash can be sitting for some days in the cash hub earning no interest if you are not careful.  I imagine it is less of an issue for the easy access ones.

If you have headroom for this year's ISA then use it.  Check the interest rates but ISAs don't always pay lower rates than non ISAs

Or you could set up an S&S ISA.

Thank you for responding  - it's not a great deal of money so a few days waiting wont be an issue. I'm not too keen on an S&S ISA as I'm retired and want to keep my money where I'm not likely to lose value.

Carefulspender1

Malchester said:

As with all of these platforms rates are not usually the best. Better rates can nearly always be found by going direct. However platforms do offer a wider range of fixed rate terms, including 1 month, 2 months etc. A fixed rate account is the same inside or outside a platform and the term cannot be broken. As DRS1 says an issue with platforms is having funds sitting in non interest paying accounts as you switch between accounts.

FWIW I have never used a platform (although have a HL Active savings account) preferring to do it myself and, if I'm honest, I enjoy the process.

Yes I understand the satisfaction of doing it yourself - I just don't want the bother 😊

Carefulspender1

LHW99 said:

I found it a bit of a rigmarole to set up an Active Savings as I didn't have another HL account. Also, to use it for a cash ISA I had to add cash to an HL S&S ISA (the hub?) then select a default account, then transfer from the one to the other.

Withdrawal worked fine, but took a couple of days. There is still a couple of £ in it, but I doubt I shall use it in future.

Thank you - it's good to hear that withdrawals are fairly simple. I imagine because I've already got an HL account it should all be fairly easy.

Carefulspender1

OldScientist said:

We currently use HL a non-ISA active savings accounts (in an effort to simplify our cash savings from the 10 banks they, at one point, resided in).

1) Opening the account was quick and easy
2) Getting cash into the hub is easy (various methods available). It appears within minutes.
3) Opening savings accounts is straightforward, but as others have noted there is a delay from opening to before the cash appears in the new account. For easy access accounts this usually appears to be a day, for fixed rate accounts it can be several days (although it does depend). There can be a one day delay getting money out of the easy access accounts too. I've not had any fixed accounts mature yet (the first one is later this month), so don't yet know how long that will take.
4) I tested withdrawing money back to my bank account, it arrived the next day (it might even have been the same day).
5) As others have said, the rates are not usually the highest available (e.g., currently HL's best 1 year fixed rate is 4.32% compared to 4.5% available elsewhere), but are generally better than the 'established names' on the mse savings page.

Thank you, that's really helpful and pretty much answers all of my questions. It doesn't sound as though there are any issues that I would be worried about.