Tesco Savings 3%
Just reading the money saving expert news letter and this caught my eye:
Tesco has offered a lifeline to savers, offering 3% savings interest with easy access. That's treble the rate you can get in normal savings and it's promising it won't fall below 3% (though could rise) for 2 years from April.
New. 3% easy access savings on up to £6,000 (£12,000 if a couple). First thing to say is this is for new and existing customers via it s Tesco Bank current account (though it's not available in NI). Don't think this means switching banks - just open it, say no to its switching service, put your money in and use it to store your savings. That's because unusually it doesn't require a minimum monthly pay-in or you to set up direct debits. Here's more key info...
- It only pays 3% up to £3,000 per account, but you're allowed two accounts per person. So open two, and if you're in a couple, open two each for the full £12k. You'll need to pass a credit check (and note, if you've an old Tesco Clubcard Plus account you can only have one each).
- If you use the debit card you get Clubcard points. It's 1pt per £1 spent on debit card spending at Tesco from April (currently 1pt per £4) on top of normal Clubcard points and 1pt per £8 spent elsewhere.
- Wasn't Tesco Bank hacked? Yes, pretty horribly - people had money taken from their accounts and it had to pay out around £2.5m to those customers so they didn't lose cash. It says it's taken every step to ensure accounts are secure.
Comments
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It's a reasonable rate these days, and the promise to keep it at at least that level for a couple of years is reassuring. Hopefully it will give the other banks something to think about.
OH has had 2 Tesco accounts for a while, I have one and will open a second soon, so that will secure 3% on £12k. They are not all filled up yet, unfortunately, as we splashed out on that new car!
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Thanks for posting this OP, we've got a Tesco CC but not a current account so will have a look at this. I was just informed yesterday that my Nationwide Loyalty savings has dropped from .95% to .75% so looking for a replacement. I already have a couple of 5% accounts and a 3% now (was 5%) plus a few 2% ones. I followed others on CT advice about opening more accounts and just moving money around, been doing it for almost a year now. ISA's are worth nothing same as Bonds its as Kj said Current accounts are paying out the best just now.
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BOS are still paying 3% on £5k, and you can have 3 accounts each. They do however require 2 DDs on each, but this can be achieved by opening a Tesco Instant Access Saver and a Tesco Internet Saver.
Just hoping the Tesco promise makes BOS hold their rates too.
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We've done quite well for the last few years with Santander' current account, they were paying 3% on a maximum of £20000 until last November when it dropped to 1.5%. Even that is better than most ISAs. Also paying cashback on direct debits; although the monthly fee went up last year from £2 to £5, the income every month far outweighs that. And you get it every month, unlike the interest on an ISA, which is only paid once a year.
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HaHaHa love the the last comment Bakers2. £1000 of interest would be nice. not doing too bad since I started moving money around. This post today reminded me to check on ISA's I've got a few due up this year and a couple of bonds, they had good rates when I took them out but I don't think I'm going to get anything near as good now.
Have opened a Tesco current account
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My interest is much reduced now that we bought the new car, but I think I may possibly have just gone over the tax free limit before that!
OH is not best pleased as she will never be a taxpayer, so we should have had more in her name.
A little glitch that will not happen again once she gets to grips with it. I rely on her to keep the finances on track
So difficult these days to ensure you are getting the best return possible.
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OH has a Santander account, it is not as good as it was obviously.
We only have council tax, fuel and telephone to pay out of it, so that cashback barely covers the £5 per month fee.
She has moved most of the money out now, just paying in the required £500, which covers the DDs.
Mind you, with our council tax and other costs set to rocket, the cashback will increase. And she will need to pay more into it.
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We have a joint account with them and OH has one in his name. You're right about the DDs, between the 2 a/cs we get less than the monthly fee in cashback for those, but added to the interest on the money in there, it still means well over £40 a month after the fees have been paid.
And yes, cashback on some DDs will go up as our council tax will go up a fair bit too; every cloud and all that
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If you have all the 3% accounts already, other than Tesco, the next beat is Club Lloyds which is now 2% on £5k, a couple could have 3 accounts. So that would beat Santander.
We are also doing the HSBC and FD monthly savers which for us are 6%, but have now dropped to 4 or 5%.
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Bakers, you are not alone, I had to ask the wife!
First Direct
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I tried them last year took them 2 months to set up the account, in the end I told them what they could do with it.
Yesterday it took about 5-10 mins to set up the Tesco one, same when I did the TSB one. OH now opened one, then we will do a joint one, that way we will get the full £12,000 at 3% rather than .75% in my Loyalty one.
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TG, you need to open 2 Tesco ones each to get the full £12k at 3%.
Sometimes a second one can be tricky, OH had to phone for the second one, the problem seems widespread, but they are very helpful via phone.
OH had a small problem with FD as we had an account with them about 20 years back and they dredged it up and were looking for original passwords etc, but it was all sorted within a week.
You can avoid the minimum pay in by also opening a savings account and depositing £1. Check for switching bonus too.
I opened HSBC, they can be quite fussy on income level apparently, you need at least the Advance account for best rate on the monthly saver. It did take me a few weeks to get it sorted, but I also got a switching bonus as I used an old account to switch in. Worth looking into that. Check out the requirements on pay in too.
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On the Tesco website it said that a joint account could have £3k in for each member giving the full £6k, that plus the 2 single accounts should give us the full £12k but will check it out before proceeding.
OH saw that Tesco had suspended their application just now, ours went through yesterday so hope those 2 are at least ok.
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. You mean to say you're not going to make it? 
completely forgotten I'd ever heard of them 
