National Savings slashes rates

Some big interest rate cuts incoming including

• Premium Bonds prize pool being cut to 1% (from 1.40%)
• Direct Saver down to 0.15%
• Income Bonds down to 0.01%
• Direct ISA down to 0.10%

Changes take effect from 24th November

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Was raised within this thread.

Think it is worthy of its own! :+1:

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Woeful really. I’d only just opened one to get a Halifax reward by paying in via debit card. I’ve withdrawn it, and its not even received same day! Now the account is ‘closed’ I don’t seem to have any trace of the transaction other than a screenshot. Glad to be shot of it.

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Same here. It’s tardiness was something I was willing to overlook for the rate, but not the new one.

Add into the mix the invisible deposits between 20th of the month and 5th of the month when interest was sent to another account to avoid compounding and you notice the cons of the account.

At 0.01%, none worth putting up with.

Both my Income Bonds and Direct Saver funds are now in the ether awaiting their arrival in my nominated current account, hopefully some time tomorrow.

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I’m going to close my income bonds and request the money to be put into Monzo today.

Probs going to put in my Marcus or the 1 year fixed Charter Pot on Monzo at 1.02%

You know you can get 1.30% with Paragon Bank, fixed for a year?

Paragon
Minimum: £1,000

Worth £2.80 per £1k against Monzo’s Charter pot at 1.02%

Charter direct is 1.16%, so an extra £1.40 per £1k than through the app.

Depends on your value of convenience all in the app, but then Marcus is not via the app.

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It does depend on the price of convenience and what you are willing to accept, as you say.

For some, Marcus is not too bad compared to a pot at Monzo as, particularly if Monzo is your linked account and you have added Marcus to your iOS Home Screen as a web clip (not sure if similar is possible on Android, I bet it is), withdrawals are easy and, crucially, are processed very quickly.

Atom’s new instant saver is also not the best rate-wise, but it does offer instant withdrawals and an app - which may be enough to sway some people.

So there is certainly a value judgement, and it’s not as simple as pure rate-chasing! Also, in this low interest environment, the difference between rates is always pretty small anyway, so it could be argued that cost for the sake of convenience is minimal.

Equally, you can always argue the other way - that with rates so close to zero, we need every last 0.01% we can get and, therefore, rate chasing is more important than ever.

Different strokes for different folks, as they say.

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I’m not incredibly glad/(slightly gleeful that my NSI products are guaranteed till 2021)(March)

I never linked Marcus to my Monzo account as, when opened initially, I was shuffling around a decent amount of money and, I admit, was somewhat concerned that the activity may trigger one of Monzo’s flags, plus the daily limit of £10,000 was, at the time, an obstacle for me too.

Now though, I don’t have £10k in Marcus, so it would not matter at all :man_shrugging:

My chances on the Premium Bonds are going to decline soon though. From 1 in 24,500 to 1 in 34,500 chance soon apparently. Do I continue to buy some monthly or not?

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I must admit, I thought the same about the daily limits and (having heard the frozen-account horror stories) decided to not use a Fintech as my linked account, only because I had a suspicion that most/all of them generally have more sensitive flagging systems. But there was no actual reason for this, really. I do think that any Fintech would probably work very well.

I don’t know what to think about the premium bonds. At the moment, I don’t have any, but was just thinking about buying £500 (I think that’s the minimum?) to dip my toe in the water - then the cut was announced!

I think I will make the most of my Skipton account, for now, thanks to having made it before they withdrew applications - thanks to you. Then I’ll re-evaluate when they cut the rate on that!

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I’ve always liked to use Santander for this purpose as they allow Faster Payments upto £100k - though anything over £25k is likely to involve a phone call rather then being done online/in app.

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Yeah, I use a legacy bank.

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No, Seb, £25 is the minimum investment mate. However, do not expect to win anything with that.

A relative has held £100 for ten years and won nothing.

Though, strictly speaking, every £1 bond has an equal chance of winning, or not :man_shrugging:

Still not got the withdrawal! What about you @PaulUK

Typcial, just when I setup NSI savings account, it goes terrible

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Arrived around 3pm. Now securely in my Skipton account :+1:

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Same, but with the Coventry. One less set of login details to remember!

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I had a £10,000 loan sat in Marcus for a time, with a Monzo linked account, I was using for a renovation. Never had an issue sending money e.g. £4000 here, £2000 there, back to Monzo, when I needed to pay for things.

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And so it starts. The 1.30% 1 Year Fixed Term bond - Para-GONE!!! :man_shrugging:

Edit: 19:50, 22/09/2020
An MSE Forum member has noticed that this account is still shown as available via the Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings Account, for anyone interested.

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Right, I couldn’t remember what it was but obviously it does make more sense to have a bit above the minimum., given the way the bonds work!

I think I will avoid them unless savings rates get cut still further (and I hope this doesn’t happen for a bit given Skipton have pulled the account).