Regular Savings Accounts Article Discussion

OceanSound

surreysaver wrote: »

You cannot change the date of the M&S Monthly Saver. As the account matures a year after opening, it should make no difference whether you fund it on the 1st or 20th, as a year is a year and you cannot change the date.

I just checked online banking, and you are right, only amount can be amended.

...it should make no difference whether you fund it on the 1st or 20th, as a year is a year and you cannot change the date.

The difference with the Nationwide regular saver is that you can fund it on any date of the month?, with this one you cant? so it doesn't matter if you open the account on the 01st,15th or the 31st?

EachPenny

OceanSound wrote: »

The difference with the Nationwide regular saver is that you can fund it on any date of the month?, with this one you cant? so it doesn't matter if you open the account on the 01st,15th or the 31st?

The difference is with accounts accepting one payment per calendar month (on any date) it is possible to open the account near the end of a calendar month and then make the second deposit only a few days later. This way for the majority of your first 'month' you are earning interest on two deposits (second 'month' three deposits etc). So even though the duration of the RS account remains fixed at 12 months, you have managed to increase the amount of interest earned.

Accounts like the M&S (and HSBC) ones where the restriction is one deposit per account anniversary month prevent you from obtaining this advantage.

OceanSound

EachPenny wrote: »

The difference is with accounts accepting one payment per calendar month (on any date) it is possible to open the account near the end of a calendar month and then make the second deposit only a few days later. This way for the majority of your first 'month' you are earning interest on two deposits (second 'month' three deposits etc). So even though the duration of the RS account remains fixed at 12 months, you have managed to increase the amount of interest earned.

Accounts like the M&S (and HSBC) ones where the restriction is one deposit per account anniversary month prevent you from obtaining this advantage.

My M&s Monthly saver was opened on 20 Aug, not 20 July as mentioned before.Sorry about that.

Anyway, I've done the calculations to check the interest earned if the SO date could have been changed to 1st of each month (starting 01 September)

It turns out interest earned would have been £89.42.

This is quite a difference to the amount that will be earned under the current setup, which is £81.25 (according to post #583) Actually, re. #583, the nationwide regular saver interest earned should be higher than £81.25 if you open account on 20th and make the next £250 payment on the 1st of each subsequent month. It should be £89.42. I think that formula is calculating interest earned if account was opened on 1st of the month and deposits made on 1st of each subsequent month.

By the way, how come the MSE regular savings calculator is giving me a result of £80.64 when I plug in the values of £250 per month at 5.0% interest rate for 1 year 0 months.

Slightly different to the result from formula in post #583.

OceanSound

EachPenny wrote: »

...Accounts like the M&S (and HSBC) ones where the restriction is one deposit per account anniversary month prevent you from obtaining this advantage.

Advance full and frank disclosure of the restriction would prevent the customer being put at a disadvantage and enable him/her to compare products across the board.

I suspect M&S and HSBC has done this (disclosure) through the terms for this particular product.

mhoc

Please can I ask has anyone had a Holmesdale building society regular saver issue 3 mature very recently?

If so were you automatically offered an issue 4 when your issue 3 matures?
Or do they only offer issue 5 with the lower interest rate?

Looking at the list of current regular savers it says this

Issue 4 - 2.10%
Only available to existing customers with a maturing Regular Saver (Issue 3) Account

But it does not say for definite.
My issue 3 matures mid October so we will see.
I am wondering though if the regular savers will just vanish from the list when Skipton takes over at the start of October
- googling I think it might have been 2010 or 2011 since Skipton had regular saver accounts.

teddysmum

I have been doing the extra interest 'thing' with Nationwide, having opened a regular saver near the end of the month, then paying the rest of the payments on the first of the month. However, it won't work much longer as the opening date approaches the last day of the month (that's if the regular saver is still worth having).


We decided to treat ourselves to a high spec caravan, instead of chasing a couple of per cent on small amounts, whose spending values is falling anyway.

JamesRobinson48

I've just accepted an invitation from this BS to rollover my RS from Issue 3 into Issue 4 at 2.10% p.a., near the end of Sep. Their letter arrived one month before my RS maturity. One doesn't know how soon they'll cease RS rollovers altogether, given the merger with Skipton effective Oct 1. But I'm hoping they'll wish to avoid making savers worse off by the merger, at least for a short time.

schiff

teddysmum wrote: »

I have been doing the extra interest 'thing' with Nationwide, having opened a regular saver near the end of the month, then paying the rest of the payments on the first of the month. However, it won't work much longer as the opening date approaches the last day of the month (that's if the regular saver is still worth having).


We decided to treat ourselves to a high spec caravan, instead of chasing a couple of per cent on small amounts, whose spending values is falling anyway.

Nationwide is at the top end of interest rates! Couldn't you have decided to do this with something paying much less?

mhoc

JamesRobinson48 wrote: »

I've just accepted an invitation from this BS to rollover my RS from Issue 3 into Issue 4 at 2.10% p.a., near the end of Sep. Their letter arrived one month before my RS maturity. One doesn't know how soon they'll cease RS rollovers altogether, given the merger with Skipton effective Oct 1. But I'm hoping they'll wish to avoid making savers worse off by the merger, at least for a short time.

thanks for this, most reassuring.
I am expecting my letter about maturing in about a week or so time so hopefully it says the same - roll over to issue 4 even though my actual maturity date is after October 1st.

[Deleted User]

Holmesdale Building Society

JamesRobinson48 wrote: »

I've just accepted an invitation from this BS to rollover my RS from Issue 3 into Issue 4 at 2.10% p.a., near the end of Sep. Their letter arrived one month before my RS maturity. One doesn't know how soon they'll cease RS rollovers altogether, given the merger with Skipton effective Oct 1. But I'm hoping they'll wish to avoid making savers worse off by the merger, at least for a short time.

I've just done the same, James. I posted the maturity instructions to Holmesdale on Friday, maturity date is 28 September. I've been wondering if this was the right thing to do, so it's reassuring that someone else has done the same. Part of my reasoning was to keep/establish a relationship with Skipton BS in the hope that some good "members only" accounts become available, perhaps restricted to account holders who moved over on 1 October from Holmesdale.