NEW ICICI Feedback Poll - Has it got any better?

arcana_2

Hi - just wanted to say I opened an account with ICICI last month (before I knew anything of the teething problems it had) and found everything went smoothly. The account was up and running in days, and on accessing it via computer I found everything was as it should be. I know it's early days but so far it's all good.

Best wishes

webwiz

masonic wrote:

I was going to say exactly the same. The direct debit system can be quite unpredictable IME and, although I now bypass it altogether and make payments by BACS, that is not a route I should have to go down.

I would actually prefer to pay in by BACS as I can monitor the flow of funds from other savings accounts through my linked current account to ICICI. If using their paying in system I do not know exactly which day there will be a call on my current account which to be safe means leaving funds in there earning no interest. However there is no mention in their help pages of how to pay in by BACS. How did you manage it?

masonic

webwiz wrote:

However there is no mention in their help pages of how to pay in by BACS. How did you manage it?

You just need to set up the transfer to pay directly into your account number. ICICI's sort code is 30-00-81, which you should be able to find in the e-mail from them containing your account details.

Paul_Herring

webwiz wrote:

[...]I do not know exactly which day there will be a call on my current account which to be safe means leaving funds in there earning no interest.

Somewhat off-topic, but I'm interested; why do you have a current account that pays no interest when you have a savings account that pays the highest, and there are current accounts which pay reasonable amounts of interest?

webwiz

Paul_Herring wrote:

Somewhat off-topic, but I'm interested; why do you have a current account that pays no interest when you have a savings account that pays the highest, and there are current accounts which pay reasonable amounts of interest?

Well, I have several internet savings accounts and move money about chasing the highest interest rate, usually introductory offers. (This is what the experts advise us to do because if you are a loyal customer to one bank you will get ripped off.) Most of these accounts demand that you have a linked curent account with direct debit facilities. So if I want to move funds from savings a/c A to savings a/c B I have to do it via the current account. You are right that I could get a current a/c with a better rate of interest but I don't leave much dosh in that a/c for more than a day or so.
Whilst on the subject I will have a quick rant about the problems of following the experts advice and being a rate tart. Because of the need to transfer funds via the current a/c I lose 6 days interest every time I switch which means it is not worth switching for a better rate of interest less than .2% and opening new accounts can sometimes be a real hassle - I gave up trying to open a Cahoot account because they kept rejecting proof of ID which had been accepted by everyone else. I need to be very careful when transferring the money as the banks set traps for the unwary. But I am persevering so far.

squeaker_2

Pain so far: having filled in 'step 1' page get 'this page is unavailable' message when I hit proceed.
Not a good start

simsony

hi,
Noticed people comparing BCCI and ICICI.

BCCI is not an indian bank.
BCCI Wikipedia

ICICI is quite ok in India and also is FSA accredited. it's just teething trouble ;-)

DocProc

"Quite OK in India"?

Hmmm?

Check out its share price history (and other stuff too - just click on the other page links) at

http://www.myiris.com/shares/company/chartShow.php?cSelect=2&icode=ICICIBCO

Perhaps we should be buying the actual shares, not just saving with a HiSAVE account?

Here's a piece of News, taken from the site above and which shows you what they do with our money. Namely 'lend it out'. It explains why they can give us such a good rate and seems to me to also indicate they have no immediate intentions of dropping the HiSAVE rate. I do hope I'm right with that personal opinion:-

ICICI Bank hikes benchmark prime lending rate to 11.75 %
Source: IRIS NEWS DIGEST (14 February 2006)

ICICI Bank (Q, N,C,F)* has hiked its benchmark prime lending rate (PLR) by 0.5 percentage points to 11.75 per cent with immediate effect, reports Business Line.

The bank may be the first to hike the PLR after the RBI`s quarterly review of the monetary policy last month, signalling a hardening interest rate regime.

The bank has also raised home loan rates by 0.5 percentage points. The revised fixed home loan rate is 9.5 per cent, while the floating rate is 7.75-8.5 per cent, with effect from February 13.

This is the second time this year that ICICI Bank has raised its PLR. In early January, the bank effected a 0.25-percentage point hike.

davied

would rather go with first direct by the sounds of things 5% but without as much hassle

DocProc

First Direct say this about their e-Savings Account :-

- start saving from only £1 (maximum balance £500,000)
- earn a healthy 5.00% AER (4.89% gross p.a.) variable on every penny in the account
- instant access to your money* (although no interest is paid on the full account balance in any month you make a withdrawal)
- online statements
- interest calculated daily and paid monthly
- one account per customer

If higher interest rates and accessibility are what you are after as a saver, then you has to ask if FD's offering is actually as good as the ICICI Bank UK Ltd's HiSAVE account.