Hi all,
Actually I considered titling this thread "Are banks trying to trick people into staying in low interest accounts?"
Basically I was recently advising some family members to at the very least put their money into the best deposit accounts they could. They wanted AIB as there is a local branch. So I review the accounts...
There is no consistency or sense to the rates. Surely it should be the case that the longer the notice period is the better the interest rates?
Look here. [broken link removed]
If you review it you can see that there are only 2 lump sum accounts paying any significant interest. Access Deposit 30 and Online Notice Deposit 7. There are several 90 day notice accounts paying practically zero. All the non fixed are of course variable, so should I assume that at some time in the past the 90 day rate was better than the 7 day? And the 7 day might drop to zero in a few months? Surely there are people with deposits in the 90 day who have not checked their interest?
Of course I know this is all legal, but it seems like the kind of thing the EU should try to regulate, if it was shown to be the case that the banks were swapping interest rates around to catch as many people as possible in low-interest accounts. I mean I know they have the right to act in a "competitive" way, but it's just not fair that a 7-day account pays more interest than a 90. And yes I know there may be more conditions relating to what you can do with the accounts, but that would not justify that page.
I read the other thread about Rabo complaining about false advertising, and people saying there was no problem, but I do think the rates are a problem. At least with rabo, I know the interest rate (even if not the best) will be reasonable and won't drop to 0.01% (Notice deposit 90) when I'm not looking!
ix.
Actually I considered titling this thread "Are banks trying to trick people into staying in low interest accounts?"
Basically I was recently advising some family members to at the very least put their money into the best deposit accounts they could. They wanted AIB as there is a local branch. So I review the accounts...
There is no consistency or sense to the rates. Surely it should be the case that the longer the notice period is the better the interest rates?
Look here. [broken link removed]
If you review it you can see that there are only 2 lump sum accounts paying any significant interest. Access Deposit 30 and Online Notice Deposit 7. There are several 90 day notice accounts paying practically zero. All the non fixed are of course variable, so should I assume that at some time in the past the 90 day rate was better than the 7 day? And the 7 day might drop to zero in a few months? Surely there are people with deposits in the 90 day who have not checked their interest?
Of course I know this is all legal, but it seems like the kind of thing the EU should try to regulate, if it was shown to be the case that the banks were swapping interest rates around to catch as many people as possible in low-interest accounts. I mean I know they have the right to act in a "competitive" way, but it's just not fair that a 7-day account pays more interest than a 90. And yes I know there may be more conditions relating to what you can do with the accounts, but that would not justify that page.
I read the other thread about Rabo complaining about false advertising, and people saying there was no problem, but I do think the rates are a problem. At least with rabo, I know the interest rate (even if not the best) will be reasonable and won't drop to 0.01% (Notice deposit 90) when I'm not looking!
ix.