A&L regular savings accout 12%APR

shona_2

So if I have no account with A&L I could open one of these with a standing order set up for £500/month. Is that right.

And you get 12%?!

And I could put in a lump sum and also get 12% on that too?

Am I right?
thanks

Shona

LongTermLurker

shona wrote: »

So if I have no account with A&L I could open one of these with a standing order set up for £500/month. Is that right.

And you get 12%?!

And I could put in a lump sum and also get 12% on that too?

Am I right?
thanks

Shona

Nope, not quite. There are 2 A&L accounts involved; first, you have to open their Premier current account and at the same time open a Regular Savings account. The Premier account pays 1% and the Regular Savings a/c pays 12%. You can only put up to £250 each month into the Regular Savings a/c.

Now according to the Ts & Cs, you have to put a minimum of £500 into the Premier a/c BUT if that's not your main income, they MAY close the 12% linked savings account - you may ask how they know if it's your main income... I guess if the money comes from an account that's also in your name, they might question it.

But you only get the 12% on the £250 that goes into your savings account - therefore, you wouldn't get 12% on a lump sum. Hope that makes sense.

There is a third account to be aware of (!) and that is the Premier Direct current a/c which pays 8.5%. However, if you open one of those, you can't open a 12% Regular Saver a/c as well - it's a bit complicated - note that the 8.5% is only paid on balances up to £2500 (I think) so it's no good for large savings.

shona_2

Thanks LTL
That is v clear. So quite a good deal for someone saving monthly but not quite what I'm looking for!
Thanks again, and welcome!

SHona

LongTermLurker

No problem - Martin has a description of how you can filter off existing savings into a regular savings a/c - assume you have £3k in a 6.5% instant access a/c (eg Kaupthing); each month, you could transfer £250 pm to the A&L 12% a/c, meaning that at the end of the year, you'd have made more (combined) interest, albeit with a fair degree of complexity. If all you want to do is get a good rate on a lump sum, and can tie that down for a year, the best rate seems to be Icesave or ICICI but like many I think the service on the latter leaves something to be desired. otherwise, at 6.86%, KE has great service.

Good luck finding what you need.

mary

My 12% Regular Saver is shortly coming to an end. Haven't checked yet, but does anyone know if you are allowed to have a second chance at it? Or is it a case of close down everything, wait for 3 months and then reapply if it's still open at that point?

Jonbvn

LongTermLurker wrote: »

No problem - Martin has a description of how you can filter off existing savings into a regular savings a/c - assume you have £3k in a 6.5% instant access a/c (eg Kaupthing); each month, you could transfer £250 pm to the A&L 12% a/c, meaning that at the end of the year, you'd have made more (combined) interest, albeit with a fair degree of complexity.

Quite frankly, given the time and effort involved for quite minor sums of money, IMHO not worth the effort. Of course my attitude is not strictly MSE, but I prefer to spend time on things that will increase my income more significantly. E.g. I get more from overtime than spending time trying to juggle savings accounts. Of course other people will have different circumstances.....:cool::cool::cool:

The_Fiddler_2

LongTermLurker wrote: »

First post - decided to show my face after "hanging about" I thought when I first read this thead that it had to be your main salary. It seems you can open the Current Account with any old £500, but...

"Premier Current Account must be credited with £500 p/month or fees may be applied; and funded with main income or Premier Regular Saver account may be closed." See http://www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/currentaccounts/index.asp?page=prem-legals&currpage=premier for details

I wouldn't run the risk. I'd be a bit p'd off if I stuck £3k away and had the account closed in month 11 on a technicality. Of course, there's no reason why you couldn't move your salary to A&L and then set up a standing order to move it out to one paying more interest.

My salary does not go into my A&L account - I just transfer over the £500 each month, £250 of which goes to the regular saver - there is not a problem with this. I have one payment left to go and have had a partial interest payment already (As per the other A&L thread)

The_Fiddler_2

LongTermLurker wrote: »

No problem - Martin has a description of how you can filter off existing savings into a regular savings a/c - assume you have £3k in a 6.5% instant access a/c (eg Kaupthing); each month, you could transfer £250 pm to the A&L 12% a/c, meaning that at the end of the year, you'd have made more (combined) interest, albeit with a fair degree of complexity. If all you want to do is get a good rate on a lump sum, and can tie that down for a year, the best rate seems to be Icesave or ICICI but like many I think the service on the latter leaves something to be desired. otherwise, at 6.86%, KE has great service.

Good luck finding what you need.

This is only really viable if you find a savings account you can dripfeed from. For an account like Kaupthing Edge you need to move the money back to the current account before transfering to the regular saver, losing interest during the transfer (although with this new suposed one day transfer it may become viable)

You can dripfeed from Sainsbury's, but you have to manually push the payments each month, you can't set up a SO. If anyone knows of a savings account where you can set up an SO I would be interested to know

roddydogs

Also dont forget all A&L "Goodies" ie 8.5% , etc are ONLY FOR 1 YEAR!

lindos90

Hi, I have just opened a premier current and regular saver and did some checking and questioning on the above issues as I had the same worries, and was told from a number of souces that:

Although it says £500 'salary', it could be coming from anywhere, the 'charging issue' is that a minimum of £500 must be paid in, if you pay in less then they may charge you, not that it has to be a salary.

Obviously they like having your salary, and transfering all DDs to it too, as you are less likely to dump them after 12 months and have the hassle of swapping your direct debits!

You will of course only get the full 12% if you are a none tax payer, if thats the case you sign a tax form for each account when you open them, thats what I did.

In addition you are automatically given another account that is linked to the current account, its called a saver plus, and currently its 5% (rather than the 1% in the current!), so Im paying in £500, then half is going into the regsaver, and half into the saver plus.