Do you want a decent interest rate on your savings, but don’t want to shop around every few months?
There’s one account I think is worth a look. Ford Money’s Flexible Saver is a simple online easy-access account, which you can open with £1, allows you to withdraw your money when you choose, and the rate is not artificially boosted by a short-term bonus rate that falls away after a year.
It also has only three pages of small print to plough through.
Best of all, everyone gets the same rate — no matter when they open it, unlike other providers, that have endless ‘issues’ of the same account type, with new ones paying higher rates than old ones.
Stable rate: Ford Money’s Flexible Saver is a simple online easy-access account, which you can open with £1, allows you to withdraw your money as and when you choose
Also, Ford Money raised the interest rate on the account to 4.75 per cent from 4.6 per cent last Friday.
It doesn’t pay the very top rate (5.04 per cent from Oxbury Bank on £25,000 plus) but has always been competitive since its launch.
Ford Money is a trading name of FCE Bank plc based in Essex and owned by Ford Motor Company.
Your money is protected up to £85,000 per person by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
I wish all providers paid the same rate to their customers, new ones and loyal ones alike. In fact, I’d hoped this would be the very day that providers would be forced to.
One year ago today, city regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) brought in new rules requiring all financial providers to offer customers ‘fair value’.
It gave them 12 months’ leeway — until today — to apply the new rules to old accounts as well as new ones.
I believe ‘fair value’ means offering loyal customers the same rates as new ones. But looking at a host of old easy-access accounts, it is clear providers do not agree.
Virgin Money thinks paying as little as 0.25 per cent will do while many more pay under 2 per cent.
How is that fair when the average easy-access account on sale now pays 3.14 per cent, and the Bank of England base rate is at 5.25 per cent?
Halifax tells me it has moved all its old passbook account holders into its Instant Saver.
But that doesn’t help much. In the older accounts you earned 1.3 per cent. Since the move they only earn a tiny bit more — 1.45 per cent on up to £10,000.
Top accounts from other providers pay more than 4.75 per cent. Virgin advises customers should move to better- paying accounts.
The FCA is not asking firms to move you to better paying accounts. You must do it.
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