Abbey 10% ISA!!!!!

sdooley

triggerrabbit, abbeylover and allie_747, firstly welcome to the site. We try to be welcoming to all posters and, like all internet forums there are some posters who have a long, detailed and reliable history of making incisive and interesting posts.

As new posters I can assure you that people do take your comments seriously, but it is not fair to suggest that there is some attempt at censorship. Your views are posted there for all to see. However we are equally entitled to post counterfactuals.

A guaranteed equity bond is in fact two products packaged together; an index tracker and a derivative (think of it as an insurance policy). Normally an index tracker is one of the cheapest investments available at 0.1-0.5% p.a. TOTAL charges. The 'insurance policy' you can work out the value of by checking the odds on a spread-betting site such as cantor or sporting index.

Putting those two elements together yourself would be difficult but cheaper than Abbey doing it for you. But a better question is, why bother? If the cost of the insurance element is such that you are extremely unlikely to outperform cash, why not keep the investment money in a cash savings account - or if it is for long-term investment, put it on the stock-market without the hedging position?

Very few people will be aware of the complexity of the product they are buying or that it is one of the only products that through a loophole in legislation does not have to quote an annual rate of its return on its advertising - 6% looks quite high but it's actually only 1.9% per year for three years.

The fact that Abbey have so duplicitously targeted their advertising at non-financially savvy people for this investment is the cause of suspicion at the posts above. It is of course completely possible that you are not part of a campaign to promote the product through 'astroturfing' and are simply naive. The educative pages of this site have been enlightening to my financial understanding and I hope they are to yours also.

gabyjane

Have to disagree, Abbey national are a terrible bank, every time i go in there are loads of people just complaining about something!
I have had lots of issues with them and have funnily enough had a letter of complaint and 330 credited to my bank due to another 'error' on my account! (do quite well out of them actually!)
the only reason i am sticking for the time being is we are shortly getting married and the high overdraft offer is tempting for a short time! After that i am off.

beardiedog

I've used Abbey in all its guises since I was 16 and I've never had any trouble with them until they were taken over by Santander. Teething problems they may be but I think the damage has been done and customers are moving away in droves.