The Lemon Fool

Got this last night;
Dear Mr Crowley, We recently wrote to you to let you know that we’ve had to make the tough decision to reduce your savings interest rate(s) from today.
This is because the Bank of England reduced the base rate from 0.75% to 0.25%, and then again to 0.10% in March, to support the nation through the coronavirus pandemic. In our letter, we explained why a fall in the base rate means that we have less to reward our savers with.
So my Loyalty Single access ISA is going down from 1.4% to a pathetic 0.25%, a drop of 1.15% due to a base rate drop of 0.65%
How do they treat disloyal customers?
It's not worth keeping money there now so hunting for a better option. I will probably dump Nationwide completely, after ~ 30 years as a customer

Try the Lloyds group...... ISA down to 0.05% and easy-access down to 0.01%

--kiloran

It's better than being charged to keep money there I guess (but only just)
Looking at something like an ultrashort bond fund for some of the cash (ERNS or similar)

Marcus (Goldman Sachs) is reducing to 1.20% from 7th May.

Looking at Ford Money @ 1.25% 1yr fixed rate (1.35% 2 yr fix)

My Lloyds bank Savings account interest rate is dropping from 0.1% to 0.01%, but ironically it is still called a "Savings Account".

AleisterCrowley wrote:Looking at Ford Money @ 1.25% 1yr fixed rate (1.35% 2 yr fix)

I know you know there are quite a few websites out there that list these things, so I’m intrigued what attracts to Ford Money?

Maybe you are up to the FSCS £85k elsewhere and, if so, understood.

Otherwise, merely for example, I have bookmarks of 1.45% one yr/1.60% two yr from https://www.investec.com/en_gb/savings- ... -term.html and Close Brothers also seem to be at 1.60% for two yr fixed https://www.closesavings.co.uk/personal ... #cal-tab-1

Edit: Just spotted you may be talking of cash ISAs only (didn’t read the OP until now)

Yes, cash ISAs that allow transfers in - I haven't done much research (yet) but Ford is top of the table on Money Saving Expert
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savin ... isa/#fixed

Yes, I've just spent the last week cleaning out all the Nationwide bits and bobs we had, a customer for about 35 years, all we have left now is the flexplus current account and that's hanging by a thread these days too, it only just suits us but any further reduction in the insurances will have that going elsewhere too, sad state of affairs.

Nationwide and I will be parting company soon, after a 30 year relationship

AleisterCrowley wrote:Yes, cash ISAs that allow transfers in - I haven't done much research (yet) but Ford is top of the table on Money Saving Expert
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savin ... isa/#fixed

The Post Office Online Fixed ISA (issue 21) beats the Ford 1 year fixed (PO 1.3% v Ford 1.25%) and matches the 2 year fix. I can never understand why the best buy tables ignore it.

1 year 1.30%
2 years 1.35%

https://www.postoffice.co.uk/savings-ac ... about-isas

'The Post Office Online ISA is no longer open for new customers'
https://www.postoffice.co.uk/savings-ac ... online-isa

Yep, I'm only with Nationwide for the £13/month travel and breakdown cover. The latter covering my campervan across Europe, so worth a fair bit to me.

(Of course neither are worth a bean right now, but one has to have hope...)

Scott.

AleisterCrowley wrote:'The Post Office Online ISA is no longer open for new customers'
https://www.postoffice.co.uk/savings-ac ... online-isa

Wow - things are moving quick aren't they. We opened one only a couple of weeks ago.

swill453 wrote:Yep, I'm only with Nationwide for the £13/month travel and breakdown cover. The latter covering my campervan across Europe, so worth a fair bit to me.

(Of course neither are worth a bean right now, but one has to have hope...)

Scott.

I switched from a Flexaccount to a joint Flexplus in January 2017 to take advantage of the Travel Insurance, Mobile Phone Insurance, Breakdown Cover and access to linked Flexplus Flexible Cash ISA account. It also paid interest on £2,500 which paid over half the £10 monthly fee.
The joint account meant that both of us were covered by the travel insurance and mobile phone insurance (although we only have a shared iPhone) plus we were both covered for our cars and also if we were a passenger in someone else's car. We could also have a Cash ISA each.

Since then they've
- increased the monthly fee to £13
- scrapped the interest
- changed the terms on the Travel insurance
- no longer offer Flexplus Cash ISA
- reduced the interest on the Cash ISA
- reduced the interest on the Loyalty accounts

In practice, we haven't used the Travel Insurance as the foreign travel we were anticipating hasn't happened, we haven't lost or broken the iPhone and neither car had a problem. We've also gone down to a single car as well.
The balances in the Cash ISAs have been transferred out to ordinary accounts (such as Marcus) for better interest rates. This has meant transferring as much as possible back into the ISAs just before the end of the tax year to preserve the ISA status, and back out again after 6th April, which is a right pain with the £10k limit on Faster Payments out of the Flexplus account.

I'm also seriously considering what to do with our Nationwide accounts.

Has anyone downgraded a Flexplus account to a Flexdirect account to save the monthly fee?

Adrian

Adrian,
Yes I downgraded in January. I had to go into branch to do it though.
It might be different now, I don't know.
The other thing was that the change of account type did not happen immediately. It only took a few days
but it was long enough for me to phone to confirm.
I note that the interest rate on the Flexdirect account is diminishing a lot on 1 July 2020.
Happy days!