Best savings account?

[Raymond Lin]

I am sticking with work pension, Chase 5.1% and Vanguard Index Fund/SIPP.

 

[HungryHippos]

Valid points for sure @Mercenary Keyboard Warrior but worth considering that T212 have been operating since 2003. As I understand it they've not had to seek additional investment either.

I think if they were insolvent there would be some creaking signs, I imagine some parts of their business print money, and others bleed a little, but on the whole fairly sound, at least as far as these things can be.

If you have a giant portfolio though I guess you could split out to different platforms to reduce risk of having all eggs in one basket, so to speak.

Assuming the worst should happen here, even as you describe it, you would potentially only lose a portion of your investment, rather than all of it at least!

 

[slinxy]

Valid points for sure @Mercenary Keyboard Warrior but worth considering that T212 have been operating since 2003. As I understand it they've not had to seek additional investment either.

I think if they were insolvent there would be some creaking signs, I imagine some parts of their business print money, and others bleed a little, but on the whole fairly sound, at least as far as these things can be.

If you have a giant portfolio though I guess you could split out to different platforms to reduce risk of having all eggs in one basket, so to speak.

Assuming the worst should happen here, even as you describe it, you would potentially only lose a portion of your investment, rather than all of it at least!

Being operational since 2003 is an embryo in the financial selector, Barrings was open for over two hundred years and it still went down and let's not forget that they had to stop accepting new users for a period.
They hold 4 billion euros in peoples assets again this is tiny as some single pension funds alone drawfs it.

Personally I use T212 as a play area, Yes a trust them else I would use someone else. But my main assests are held with my bank, vanguard, L&G and morgan standley.

 

[HungryHippos]

Yep definitely valid concerns here, can never say never (a lot of financial things have gone on which no one dreamt would happen after all).

Risk/Portfolio size all come into play for this as well. Mine is too small to matter much at the moment and is still mostly cash, but eventually my S&S ISA could wind up being much larger, at which point I would consider moving some out perhaps back into Vanguard for longer term storage.

For what it's worth the accounting books on T212 are posted to Companies House and the results look decent, they're making good money and have a good stash of assets in hand to cover things. I'm reasonably confident in T212 here still personally, granted not as much as say Vanguard or my Bank, but certainly not the same level of risk as a VC funded startup that is losing money each year.

 

[200sols]

If doing less than £20K (so some ISA allowance left) but you don't want or need more cash reserves, then once again you'd not need a Cash ISA as you'd be committed to investing all spare capital into the S&S ISA.

It depends on circumstances for sure.

As for your drip feeding the market, I can understand it. The world trackers are full of very expensive US stocks right now.

 

[HungryHippos]

Statistically speaking it's probably the wrong strategy and going lump sum all at once is probably the right idea, but there is a chance (even if it's less than 50/50) that DCA is the better strategy.

If it winds up being false, then so be it, long term you can't really lose, I definitely sleep easier knowing that I have capital I can add on a dip, or that my buy in price is averaged over time, and I think that helps to settle my mind which is important!

 

[DJMK4]

Given the Cash ISA is flexible, unless you're maxing the ISA pot for the year, why not just put all there?

Do the non Cash ISA ones give you quicker/instant withdrawals?

My ZOPA ISA transfer to Trading 212 says it's sent but I don't see the funds in T212 yet, so they're in the aether somewhere! Hoping they show up today

I should do really but the money going in to the non ISA account with zopa is for car stuff. I want to seperate it away from my ISA savings if possible, just so it's easier to view. It was surplus holiday sell money.

Usually I would stick it in the same ISA pot. May still do this

Unfortunately I started looking round for a car, I got stressed out searching , things got busy , car searching is on hold for a sec


.



Iv not noticed any difference in withdrawal times? Pretty much the same. If your sending larger money to zopa it may show instantly or could take up to 2 hours


How does the zopa to T212 work? Similar product to zopa ISA but higher rate ? Is it flexible? I'll have to have a read

Must haves are

- flexible ISA , that you can take out and put back in
- protected
- has a good customer service / chat service/ phone
- probably not going to lower rates ( zopa seem to be sticking to their guns of 5.08 until April 2025 at the moment despite others lowering rates

What have Trading212s track record been like with rate change? Lowering? I wouldnt want to move it they arelikely to lower the rate in 2-3 months

 

[HungryHippos]

For 1: Zopa and T212 ISA flexibility appears the same to me, can withdraw whenever etc.

With ISA balances, worth mentioning that if you deposit say £10K with ZOPA and then you withdraw £5K a month later, you get back the allowance, but only if you deposit it with ZOPA again in the same tax year. The Flexible bit only works on the same platform, same the other way around with T212 and deposits/withdrawals.

This is why you generally want to transfer ISA around rather than withdrawing and trying to re-deposit.

For 2: Yes this is FSCS covered.

For 3: I've not had to use them yet for support.

For 4: Anyones guess here this is a brand new product for T212. Nothing stopping you leaving ZOPA alone and putting new deposits into T212 instead of moving, so long as you're below the ISA deposit limit.

If rates drop you can issue an ISA move from T212 over into ZOPA.

You should look into how you could use an Interest Free credit card for your car money btw, I've not done this so don't know if it's done by stoozing or if the dealers can normally just take an interest free credit card as part or full payment, but it's a good way to carry on saving/earning interest whilst paying no interest on some or all of your car purchase (limitations may exist for how much credit you can get on this method).

 

[DJMK4]

Given the Cash ISA is flexible, unless you're maxing the ISA pot for the year, why not just put all there?

Do the non Cash ISA ones give you quicker/instant withdrawals?

My ZOPA ISA transfer to Trading 212 says it's sent but I don't see the funds in T212 yet, so they're in the aether somewhere! Hoping they show up today

I should do really but the money going in to the non ISA account with zopa is for car stuff. I want to seperate it away from my ISA savings if possible, just so it's easier to view. It was surplus holiday sell money.

Usually I would stick it in the same ISA pot. May still do this

Unfortunately I started looking round for a car, I got stressed out searching , things got busy , car searching is on hold for a sec

For 1: Zopa and T212 ISA flexibility appears the same to me, can withdraw whenever etc.

With ISA balances, worth mentioning that if you deposit say £10K with ZOPA and then you withdraw £5K a month later, you get back the allowance, but only if you deposit it with ZOPA again in the same tax year. The Flexible bit only works on the same platform, same the other way around with T212 and deposits/withdrawals.

This is why you generally want to transfer ISA around rather than withdrawing and trying to re-deposit.

For 2: Yes this is FSCS covered.

For 3: I've not had to use them yet for support.

For 4: Anyones guess here this is a brand new product for T212. Nothing stopping you leaving ZOPA alone and putting new deposits into T212 instead of moving, so long as you're below the ISA deposit limit.

If rates drop you can issue an ISA move from T212 over into ZOPA.

You should look into how you could use an Interest Free credit card for your car money btw, I've not done this so don't know if it's done by stoozing or if the dealers can normally just take an interest free credit card as part or full payment, but it's a good way to carry on saving/earning interest whilst paying no interest on some or all of your car purchase (limitations may exist for how much credit you can get on this method).

Nice sounds good, I'll have a think about the 212.

It's really not worth me leaving zopa alone and putting new deposits in to 212, It would be a transfer all or nothing scenario.

And yes interest free card I was looking up on this . Apparently lot of them don't like credit cards but if you make a partial payment it would help. I would use a mix of savings aswel but 0% for some of it would be good

 

[HungryHippos]

If you spend a lot you can also look at stoozing and pocketing the cash you otherwise spend on the interest free card.

I'd do it but I don't routinely spend enough on my CC, but the basic idea is you get the interest free card and then do all of your spending on it.

Pay the minimum monthly via DD.

The cash you don't spend you keep back and use for whatever you want, car purchase, savings etc. It either stops you paying interest or it earns you some.

Safe to do as long as you have the capital there to pay it off in full before it starts charging you interest!

 

[Dg834man]

I should do really but the money going in to the non ISA account with zopa is for car stuff. I want to seperate it away from my ISA savings if possible

T212 do 5.2% in invest(non isa trading account) cash isa and s&s isa, so if you want you can split it between the accounts, i use invest and s&s isa not because i want pots but i have used up my isa allowance.

 

[MatsyLR]

With 212 make sure you only add fund sources from places you are able to verify through a bank statement.

Used my debit card to add £1 to test the system (debit card that was generated solely to test). Now I cannot withdraw as its an unverified card and I have no verification methods they will accept. All payment methods have to be manually verified for withdrawals.

Won't even remove it all together, having to argue on the chat system till someone said they will get it removed. Been 2 days now no update. Glad I didn't put any money in apart from £1.

I'd like to use their cash isa instead of chip but very reluctant the customer service is horrible.

 

[HungryHippos]

Usually use full bank transfers for isa or savings deposits tbh, they do take debit as well but you get charged a fee on deposits after a while.

 

[katy81]

What should I do.

I have about 15k in my Halifax.savings account. I think its called every day saver.

I'd only realistically need access to 5k and 10s a nice round number.

Don't really want to loose it but willing to take some risk. Quite happy to lock it in to some long term 5 or 10 year thing and forget about it.

How do I buy bitcoin

 

[ShiWarrior]

so chip are going to be accepting transfer into their ISA
trying to set mine up and i don't understand it

first part said how much will be transferring, so i put in the full amount, then the next step says "how much have you deposited into the cash isa you want to transfer this tax year ? Please note we can not accept partial transfers


does this mean how much i deposited into the account that im transferring from ? as i haven't, i transferred TO that account

 

[mattyfez]

does this mean how much i deposited into the account that im transferring from ?

I think it means 'how much money have you put into your existing isa this year?' (ie since April 6) as that counts toward your 20k allowance for your new chip ISA for this period

 

[HungryHippos]

If you've paid nothing into any isa this fiscal year put £0.

 

[mattyfez]

If you've paid nothing into any isa this fiacal year put £0

Yeah.

 

[HungryHippos]

What should I do.

I have about 15k in my Halifax.savings account. I think its called every day saver.

I'd only realistically need access to 5k and 10s a nice round number.

Don't really want to loose it but willing to take some risk. Quite happy to lock it in to some long term 5 or 10 year thing and forget about it.

How do I buy bitcoin

What rate is the Halifax saver paying? You can achieve interest of around 5% or so in general at the moment. If you're getting nowhere near that, then consider shifting funds around to somewhere that pays you more.

I mentioned it here before but Trading 212 do both a Cash ISA and S&S ISA that lets you invest/save and pays 5.2% interest at the moment on balances held there. I like the platform so far and the lack of fees on investments are nice. Read back through the last couple of pages on this thread and you can see more of what we talked about here and I outlined my strategy with the index funds as well.

What you invest in will depend on your risk appetite and goals, but I think the rule of thumb is that you need to keep enough short term cash for a few months worth of expenses, but this cash can be mostly sat earning interest somewhere as long as it's flexible and reasonably quick to withdraw should you need it.

If you have cash beyond this emergency fund figure then look at feeding it into something else.

Passive index funds in either S&S ISA (short term access but less tax efficient long term) or SIPP/Pension (long term access but more tax efficient). There are various options with these, but they are considered a relatively safe investment for wealth accrual, and require no special knowledge. These are typically multi-year (minimum of 5) investments though and aren't there as get rich quick schemes.

You could buy bitcoin but it's highly speculative. You can just sign up to Coinbase and buy there via GBP if you want some, you do need to perform KYC with them.

Both bitcoin and stocks are near all time high values so if you're worried about investing all at once (like I am currently) then consider a DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging) strategy, where you buy routinely instead of in one go. Especially useful on Bitcoin as it's so volatile.

Worth mentioning that this assumes no major outstanding expensive debt beyond say a mortgage. If you owe money on other things that are costing a lot of interest, clearing those could be a better idea than trying to outpace costs with investments.

 

[ShiWarrior]

thanks guys

im all set