Regular Savers

[planteria]

ah yes, i stand corrected Sarah. they'd need to double it to make it worthwhile though, i reckon.

[Sarah]

I'm a little cheesed off with HSBC at the moment. My regular savers with First Direct and HSBC both came up for renewal together at the start of this month. As usual, I applied to renew them both and made the appropriate first payment funds available. This went fine with First Direct which opened my new account and transferred my initial deposit the same day.

However, after nothing appeared to happen with HSBC a letter arrived a week later asking me to visit a branch with proof of address. So I did that without delay. Now another week later and after no apparent progress, I've just received another letter from HSBC asking me to go into branch again, this time with proof of identity! Why didn't they ask last time -- even unprepared I could've handed over my drivers licence? Or call me instead of spending weeks sending letters? Pretty poor service - with bank holidays coming up it'll end up taking nearly a month just to renew my HSBC regular saver, despite having already done so many times previously!

[planteria]

agreed, they made my RegSav hard work this time too.

[Sarah]

I lost a whole month in the end; pre-existing HSBC application had evaporated so had to apply again this week. I did this at a branch counter and account was open later the same day.

[planteria]

i was consistently opening in-branch previously, and perhaps that is the best way: nail it all in one go, face-to-face.

[Sarah]

It took them 6 weeks to think about it, however just received £75 compensation from HSBC for their errors renewing my regular saver!

[planteria]

ok good work Sarah... perhaps i should be pushing them re. mine too.
my Nationwide RegSav matures in a month's time. they have emailed me and the 5% rate is still available as an option, so i shall have another slice of that. Nationwide/M&S/HSBC all keep my savings as long as they maintain 5%.. below that i think i'll just commit more to invest long-term.

[planteria]

i have raised the delay this morning.. they're crediting me £25 and sending me some chocolates. well done for prompting me Sarah

[Sarah]

Nice! Well done!

[planteria]

as discussed elsewhere, Nationwide have pulled their 5% RegSav. mine matured and bagged a new one a few weeks ago, so still on board - but the only 5%s available now are from the HSBC stable. my guess is that, with no other providers matching them, they'll look to lower their rates. Friendly Society regular investments are still ticking along nicely - 'rates' are low, but they're paid on the full sum assured so the annual bonus looks great compared to the annual contribution.