Hi,

I am wondering what the is the best place to put some of my savings into for a time of maybe 9 months to 1 year.

Am anticipating further rate cuts and therefore would like to tie my savings into a fixed rate that won't follow the the cuts downards.

Which bonds/fixed rates would you go for. Looking for something that is 'safe' (protected by the protection scheme) but also offers a competitive interest rate.

ICICI and Anglo-Irish seem to offer a good rate, but are they protected? Any advice much appreciated?

Cheers

STEER CLEAR OF ICICI,

Ratings on ICICI were downgraded and you should stick to a safe financial institution like Nationwide where you can get 6.5% fix on a 1 year E-Bond but you need a flex current account opened as well to invest in the E-Bond.

Anglo Irish have the backing of the Irish Government on 100% of your deposit but their economy is suffering badly too.

Stick to a bank were you can easily walk into a branch to sort out any problems although the Nationwide E-Bond is run over the internet. Nationwide haven't done any crazy lending so should be stable.

Also keep less than £50k in any institution.

what about cap one at 6.5%? any good?

Funnily enough I do have $60k invested in a CD (time deposit) with Capital One in the USA. That is invested through a broker and has full FDIC coverage.

I do not have experience of dealing with Capital One in the UK although the customer service dept. of their credit card division doesn't seem to have a good name according to some posts on forums.

ICICI UK plc are a UK registered bank (albeit owned by Bank of India), thus guaranteed up to £50000 by UK Govt. With a 1-yr bond at 7.1% they should still be a good buy and safe bet

Hi Newbie13, To be honest I would keep it with a UK bank/ building society no matter what anyone says. I have money on deposit with ICESAVE! Will get it back sometime. Its nearly been a month and I can't get any money. I don't think that would happen with a UK bank / building society. When I get mine back I think Nationwide looks fairly safe, someone has already suggested that to you.

ICICI UK plc deposits are guaranteed up to £50k by FSCS as mentioned above, but it can take up to 6 months to get your money back if the bank was to fail. (FSCS is funded by the banks not the UK government) This will also mean loss of interest for that period of time too which if you had to claim then this would bring your actual APR down quite dramatically.

As Kev suggested, stick to a larger UK Bank / Building Society for safety. Banks are not downgraded for no reason and ICICI Bank is not somewhere that I would be saving money. People (and some newspapers) loved Icesave and Kaupthing for high rates, Icesave and Kaupthing both said they were safe and had sufficient funds to meet their obligations but the 3 biggest Icelandic Banks (including the 2 above) all closed within 2 weeks.

Interest IS NOT everything when depositing cash, safety comes into it to. Icesave UK customers are lucky to be getting their money back a bit quicker but don't count on this with other foreign banks.

They only pay HIGHER rates because other banks will not lend them the money at cheap rates like they normally would to mainstream banks. With the current credit crunch I would assume that riskier banks could not borrow at all.

Ive been searching also for when my icesave deposit is returned. Its hard to plan tho cos we dont know how much we can process overtime in three stsges? I have levelled this down to Alliance leicester, Halifax, nationwide n Abbey. Gonna try and spread risk between building soc, bank. Most interest rates gone down tho. You would think that due to the risk we take and millions that will come out of Icesave that there would be high st finace retailers competing for a percentage!

Hi - This is not a straightforward answer to the question posed and mirrors a post I placed on the site elsewhere so apologies to anyone coming across it again but I am convinced it is an idea worth pursuing.

It strikes me that a lot of institutions do what they can get away with but are aware of striking a fine balance of not being too aggressive in cutting savings rates for fear of losing too many deposits to their competitors. I know it's an old story but surely it would make sense for savers to band together and act as a cooperative.

I know that phoning my bank and threatening to pull out my 50k (the maximum guaranteed amount with any single institution) if they do not re-instate the latest savings rate cut is likely to fall on deaf ears but perhaps less so if there were ten of us with 500k in total and better still if it was 100 representing 5million pounds. It goes without saying that should a 1,000 such individuals be united, they would represent a staggering 50 million - something to make a bank think twice.

I have set up an e-mail address and would love to hear from anyone interested. It is XXXX

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in reply to ATM.talking complete rubbish,if he bothered to look into the financial profile of icici bank,he will find that this institution is described by all commentators as being stable,take a look at THIS IS MONEY web for an update.

think you will find that the Nationwide e-bond is no longer 6.5%,more like 5.10%,all banks apart from icici,are reducing their rates because of recent BOE reductions.

billy p 1941,

Have a look at the date of my post on Nationwides 6.5% E-bond offering, this was dated 25 October, ABOUT 2 WEEKS BEFORE THE BIG CUT. WHAT ARE YOU ON ?

Regarding ICICI, their ratings by the likes of Moody's, Fitch ratings etc is BBB- . They were classified as stable by "this is money" a site run by newspapers who also said Icesave was a good place to put your money.... I took my savings (sale of house) out of Icesave in February 2008, when the very first warnings arose about the top 4 Icelandic Banks, which include Glitnir, Landsbanki (Icesave) and Kaupthing. The warning was about these banks and other Icelandic financial institutions all "cross-investing in each other".

Now IF you happen to have a short memory let me remind you, in 2000/01 many Split Capital Investment Trusts offered "very safe" Zero Dividend classes of shares which up till then gave a fixed repayment price on their expiry date. These Investment Trusts had cross-invested in each other too and when one failed, then the others collapsed like a house of cards just like the Icelandic Banks.

These forms are here for people to ask questions and get opinions from others, have a look at the previous threads and posts regarding Kaupthing, Icesave and ICICI and then if you are happy with your choice, please invest all your money with ICICI who have been downgraded to BBB- which is exactly the same rating as Bradford & Bingley had before the Government had to rescue them.

I notice you are a new poster, just got your first 2 rants against me today but another poster defended ICICI some 5 or 6 weeks ago and had a pop at me, makes me wonder.......

to ATM.

OOPS.

NO MORE POPS AT YOU..

billy boy,

No problem mate, but i do my homework and just try to help out like all the others here.

I just don't like to see people lose money or paying out over the odds on mortgages, loans etc.

ATM

Hello ATM.

Thanks for that,i agree,too many people being ripped off.Problem now is finding a safe haven for your savings.

% rate is becoming less important,i took out a 4 year fixed bond with Abbey in 2006,and a Hi-save account with icici in the last year.So like many others,we can only keep our eyes open,and hope things pick up in the near future,

Is this wishful thinking? MAYBE.All the best to all you Savers.