OakNorth Easy Access ISA Savings Pot interest rate is going down on 1st May 2020

Not ISA related but I had the standard easy access account with OakNorth, closed it down last night and just waiting for the money to move back into my account, opened a new one at higher percentage, only talking pennies in interest but still it’s better than nothing

1 Like

Today’s email from them good to get. Not sure how helpful it was though

Certainly highlights they need to mature their ISA offering

2 Likes

The debacle with yesterday’s ‘advice’ and today’s email going back on it has shaken my trust in Monzo quite a bit.

I followed the advice and closed my OakNorth ISA, transferred the money back into my account and was about to open an Investec ISA as instructed.

I’ve now gone back and opened a new OakNorth Easy Access ISA. Fingers crossed I won’t be penalised but this is now getting far out of my comfort zone/level of understanding.

Presumably after April 6th I will be able to transfer the ISA out to a more reliable business?

I did the same but did the whole shabang…Now I’ve re-opened the OakNorth, closed the Investic…what a cockup

1 Like

Wouldn’t it count as a new account if you’ve closed one with then and then reopened one, not seen the terms and conditions for ISA accounts as I hold one elsewhere

2 Likes

What was the nature of the debacle?:thinking:

Monzo sent an email to customers with an OakNorth Easy Access ISA advising them to close it and put the money into a new ISA with Investec.

The next day they sent another email saying this advice was wrong and everyone who’d done it had to reopen an OakNorth ISA and put their money back into it before 6th April.

I guess the digital marketing team aren’t qualified to give financial advice.

1 Like

Crikey - this is about as basic as it gets. I’m really surprised… I think. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Good job the OakNorth ISA allowed withdrawals otherwise those funds would have lost tax-free status. No big deal if its a small sum, but if it’s nest egg of many thousands - that’d be a disaster.

1 Like

Fancy sharing the email?

1st email

[On 1st May 2020], OakNorth (the bank that provides your Savings Pot) will be reducing the interest rate on your Easy Access ISA Savings Pot to 0.35% AER/Gross.

They’re doing this because the Bank of England reduced their base rate in response to the coronavirus outbreak, and that affects the interest rate they’re able to offer you.

We’re letting you know this change 30 days before it happens as we agreed with you when you accepted the Ts and Cs. You can read them at any time by swiping across to your Pot and scrolling down to “Your Savings agreement”.

You’ll find your current interest rate as well as the total amount of interest accrued for the month and overall there too.
You don’t need to do anything…
We’ll adjust the interest rate of your OakNorth Easy Access Savings ISA Pot automatically. As of [1st May], your Savings Pot will start earning interest at the new rate of 0.35% AER/Gross.
…but you can if you want to :seedling:
The highest Easy Access ISA Savings Pot interest rate available right now is 0.93% AER/Gross, powered by Investec Bank. To get this rate, you can close your current Savings Pot and open a new one by tapping on your picture in the top-left corner of the app. Then tap, “Earn interest on your money”.

That’s it!

To see all our Savings Pots, take a look at our [website] if you have any questions - please get in touch.

Your friends at Monzo

1 Like

The retraction

Important: we made a mistake in yesterday’s email – here’s what you need to do
Yesterday we let you know that the interest rate of your OakNorth Easy Access ISA Savings Pot is changing to 0.35% AER/Gross [on 1 May 2020].

That part is still true. But we also told you this, which wasn’t right:

“The highest Easy Access ISA Savings Pot interest rate available right now is 0.93% AER/Gross, powered by Investec Bank. To get this rate, you can close your current Savings Pot and open a new one by tapping on your picture in the top-left corner of the app. Then tap, “Earn interest on your money.”

We’re really sorry about this. To switch your money from one ISA Savings Pot to another in the Monzo app, you’d need to do what’s called an ‘internal ISA transfer,’ which we can’t support at the moment.

If you haven’t moved your money out of your OakNorth Savings Pot, you don’t need to do anything.

If you’ve already closed your OakNorth Savings Pot

So your money counts towards your tax-free allowance for this tax year, you’ll need to reopen an OakNorth Easy Access ISA Savings Pot in the app.

This will reinstate the same Savings Pot you had, but you’ll need to do this [before 11.59pm on 5 April 2020] .

Because your OakNorth Easy Access ISA Savings Pot is a Flexible ISA, you can replace up to £20,000 you’ve withdrawn from your Pot.

If you withdrew over £20,000, please chat with us in the app so we can help reinstate your balance.

After that, you can transfer your whole ISA to a provider outside Monzo, if you want to

To do this, you’ll still need to reopen an OakNorth Easy Access ISA Savings Pot **[before 11:59pm on 5 April 2020] ** (to reinstate the same Savings Pot).

After it’s reinstated you can transfer your ISA whenever you like, and the whole process will take up to 15 days. So you know – we only support full transfers and we don’t currently offer partial transfers.

Get in touch with the provider of the ISA you want to move to and they’ll give you an ISA transfer form. Once they’ve got your form, they’ll contact us for any relevant information and we’ll transfer your money to them within 5 working days, in line with ISA regulations relating to ISA transfers. [Here’s some more information] about transferring your ISA.

Thanks,
Team Monzo

3 Likes

Oh dear, this sounds like a massive cockup, and I’m surprised it isn’t actually reported on anywhere seeing how certain media outlets love jumping on Monzo

Regardless, this could’ve cost customers a lot of money, and it’s another one of those little things that shake my trust in Monzo.

2 Likes

This’ll likely create little clamour on the forum as, given the demographic, the importance of lessons learned will be lost (ISAs are far less interesting than the elusive Plus offerings or Monzo’s environmental impact).

I do seriously worry, though, about the knowledge base within Monzo outside that of system development. This stuff should be a given.

Monzo will surely not make such mistakes again…

The only saving grace on this is that it was a flexible ISA , it really is an inexcusable mistake that could have cost people their ISA allowance for the year. As you say how could people tasked with this email not know this ?

We all make mistakes though and hopefully learn from them.

4 Likes

Yep, and that’s the bit that’ll be lost here.

Not wishing to beat Monzo with it, but it’d be no bad thing if a spokesperson were to assure customers that, whilst this will have largely gone under the radar, it won’t happen again (because they’ve put safeguards in place).

3 Likes

It amazes me how many people do not know the basics about types of ISAs and the rules governing transfers etc , the first email surely was given to someone who deals with ISAs and should have known the rules or at least rung alarm bells as to am I doing this thing right and investigated, the person doing the tasking should have been confident in the person selected …not wishing to keep bashing the people that made the mistakes , Im sure they will have been spoken to …

Ive said enough, it won’t change the outcome at this stage , hopefully those affected will have acted on the second email , and Monzo should ensure they have by contacting them if they haven’t moved their funds back :slight_smile: @tristan . unashamedly tagged to check

1 Like

To make things worse I didn’t really understand their second email whether it’s enough to just re-open the OakNorth account without transferring back the money or not (I basically re-opened the OakNorth account but didn’t transfer the money back cos it’s already on another savings account)

I was really confused and so I wanted to chat with them in the app, somebody reponded fairly quickly telling me that he has to forward my request to a specialist team and they would get back to me in 3 hours. This was on Thursday evening, nobody responded so far and now they don’t respond to my messages in the chat either.

I think that ‘helpful’ Monzo employee forwarded my chat to someone who isn’t working or not sure why my message hasn’t been picked up when they gave me a deadline to reinstate my ISA savings account until tomorrow. Obviously now it’s too late cos I can’t get money out of the other savings account on time for the 5 April deadline.

It would be great if people emailing or sending out instructions would be qualified bankers with proper financial knowledge and not working from home hipsters - I am sorry to say this.

If I incur a financial loss because of this cock up I am going to take my money back to a traditional bank. Enough is enough.

5 Likes

" I didn’t really understand their second email whether it’s enough to just re-open the OakNorth account without transferring back the money or not"

well yes its a flexible ISA so you can take out and put in as many times as you like in the tax year up to your limits , you have to transfer your money back in to have the allowance , did you think that you could transfer money out and leave it empty and then have some mythical benefit of an empty flexible ISA ?

I am sorry but I am not an expert in ISA accounts just like many of us who opened these accounts. I listen to the advice coming from employees of a bank. And because of my lack of knowledge I wanted to talk to people at Monzo.

4 Likes

You could try ringing the number on the back of the card?