Branch savings advice please

pookey

Hi everyone, 

Family friends have come into money and are asking for advice on savings accounts.  They are elderly so don't do online banking so are looking for branch based accounts.  

They currently bank with YBS, Halifax, Barclays , Nationwide  and natwest. 

The amount they have in savings is around £75k each.  
I've had a very quick look and seen that YBS have a fixed branch based ISA around 4% and Rainy day saver around 4% too. This would account for 30k each.

Can anyone recommend what to do with the other 30k please? I would prefer to keep it simple and not open too many different accounts so it's easy for them to keep track if possible. They don't really need access to the money so it can be fixed.  

Any advice would be much appreciated. 

clairec666

YBS easy access saver (4% but soon to drop to 3.9%) could be of use. Deposits up to £500,000.

Higher interest is available if you make use of regular saver accounts (e.g. Nationwide at 6.5%) but will probably make things more complicated than you want. Plus the Nationwide one is online only.

Middle_of_the_Road

Coventry building society 4.15%

https://www.coventrybuildingsociety.co.uk/member/product/savings/cash_isa/5-access-isa-1-year.html

Skipton building society 4.12%

https://www.skipton.co.uk/savings/isas/easy-access/annual-allowance-cash-isa

pookey

clairec666 said:

YBS easy access saver (4% but soon to drop to 3.9%) could be of use. Deposits up to £500,000.

Higher interest is available if you make use of regular saver accounts (e.g. Nationwide at 6.5%) but will probably make things more complicated than you want. Plus the Nationwide one is online only.

Thank you very much, this would make it a lot easier.  i didn't notice this account when I checked earlier 

pookey

clairec666 said:

YBS easy access saver (4% but soon to drop to 3.9%) could be of use. Deposits up to £500,000.

Higher interest is available if you make use of regular saver accounts (e.g. Nationwide at 6.5%) but will probably make things more complicated than you want. Plus the Nationwide one is online only.

Just had a look, I think this account is online only which is a bit annoying so might just stick the money in a bond as they need something branch based

Cisco001

Where are they living?
There might be building society suit the need, but they need to live near those.

mon3ysav3r

Would avoid TSB (bought by Santander) or Halifax (Lloyds Banking Group), feel like they are more likely to have branch closures, although of course any bank or building society may close their branch local to you in the future.

xylophone

If they don't need access, how about a fixed rate (branch) bond with Nationwide?

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/savings/fixed-rate-savings-accounts/

Albermarle

Do they actually need to use a cash ISA, as opposed to a normal savings accounts?

Although the interest from £75K will be in excess of the £1000 personal savings allowance, if they have low incomes ( say less than £15Kpa ) they will not pay any tax on the interest.

The advantage of using non ISA savings accounts, is that is less complicated when you want to transfer from one account to another and you do not have worry about ISA rules.

Or they can some in a cash ISA and some not. 

Bridlington1

It's worth noting you can also filter accounts on moneyfacts to show only accounts that can be opened and managed in branch.

To do this, go to moneyfacts, then full search and change the account opening and account mamagement sections to branch. Then click ``revise search".


Also make sure to sort the accounts by rate:

lr1277

I would suggest building up cash ISA's. My reasons are as follows:

When both my parents were alive, my dad had a occupational and state pension. My mum is still alive and had a state pension. Mum never paid tax as she never earned enough.

After dad died, both his occupational pension and state pension transferred to mum. Some of his savings account also transferred to mum. The only accounts that didn't transfer were his cash ISA's. Suddenly she was paying tax on her increased income. This coincided with the rise in interest rates after many years of low rates. This led to a situation where HRMC kept sending out different tax codes to her occupational pension provider, each one meaning her net pension income was reduced. Mum was upset that each tax coding notice led to a decrease in her net pension. Once we realised what was going on, we moved as much of her savings as possible into cash ISA's and will continue to do in each new tax year, whilst funds are not in ISA's.

Positives with a cash ISA: Less tax to pay

Negatives: I am under the impression non-ISA savings accounts have higher rates of interest than cash ISA accounts. You (or they) may not want to think about this, but once one person in the couple dies, getting the ISA money to the living spouse maybe more difficult and may involve probate or letters of administration. But if it is a branch based account and they are both known at the branch, who knows what the procedures are?

But this all depends on finding a branch based cash ISA that pays an acceptable rate of interest.