Hi

I have just been through the somewhat stressful process of getting my ISA cash back from Icesave and have to admit that the whole experience has now left me a little jaded when it comes to banks!

There are two things I wanted to ask your opinion on - what do you think is going to happen to rates next year? the general consensus seems to be that they will fall to as low as 1% - so am I going to be better off looking at a fixed rate now?

Secondly - I see that Halifax are offering a nice 5.75% fixed for a year on ISA's and wondered about your opinion of them having been through some rocky times recently?

Any opinions you can offer (and I realise that they are only that) would be appreciated

As the previous poster said,all banks have 50k gaurentee,so no need to worry on that score.

All the financial pundits say that interest rates will drop very quickly.So getting in on a fixed rate bond now looks the best bet IMO.Something I am looking at right now.Best be quick,as I think the best fixed rates will soon drop when the 1 1/2% drop in Base rate filters through.

As a completely different question, but related, can anyone put their ex-ICESAVE ISAs anywhere?

In otherwords, has anyone received their Tax Certificate to allow them to reinvest?

Alternatively, has anyone found a new ISA provider who will take the funds IN ADVANCE of receiving the Certificate?

These questions are very important to allow savers to lock into reasonable rates before the anticipated rate reductions later this week!

John

Hi John B

Your answers are yes and yes!

You can either:

1) Put your Icesave ISA into ANY account (ISA or otherwise) as long as you re-invest into an ISA by April 2009 (if you want to keep the tax free status) whilst you wait for the FSCS certificate

Or

2) Do what I did, stick it into the best fixed rate ISA you can find NOW before the rates drop again - you can open the account and all banks will give you 30 days to produce the certificate and should hold the interest as the day you applied. Halifax did that with me, I went into the branch to do it and am glad I did as they got me to sign a blue form guaranteeing the rate as that day providing I get my certifiacte to them within 30 days - they opened a temporary holding account (a variable rate ISA) whilst I await the certificate, this will then get transfered into a 1 Yr fixed rate at todays rate starting from the date of transfer into the fixed account. Plus I'm still getting interest whilst it's sat in the holding account

Hope that helps

Symbiosis:

Hi John B

Your answers are yes and yes!

You can either:

1) Put your Icesave ISA into ANY account (ISA or otherwise) as long as you re-invest into an ISA by April 2009 (if you want to keep the tax free status) whilst you wait for the FSCS certificate

I think that you will find that not all banks/B.S. will take existing ISA funds from other banks/B.S.

Sybiosis, hi there.

Thanks for your advice.

Just to update you on my progress with getting my ex Icesave ISA into Halifax at their then current 12 months fixed rate of 5.75%.

I applied on line and got confirmation that the account was open (but empty) at 5.75% on 21/11/08.

Having been told that they would not accept the deposit without the ISA Certificate (this advice came from both my local branch and the central "Savings helpline") I delayed for a while with the FSCS funds parked up awaiting the Certificate. However, recognising that time was running out to fix at that rate. I decided to chance my arm with a transfer of the funds (over £30k) by CHAPs on 05/12/08. (I organised that by mobile phone from a train with my helpful Bank Manager at Lloyds TSB - full marks to them!)

The Certificate arrived in the Post the following day Saturday 06/12/08. So I immediately took it into the local Halifax branch to "legitamise" the deposit. To say thay had no idea what to do would be an understatement, although they did confirm that the funds were in the account but that the ISA was classified as "Void" (probably because the deposit was above the 2008/9 limit of £3600). I eventually asked them to hold on to the Certificate and contact Halifax's HQ on Monday morning to resolve the issue.

Come the next week, they advised me that, as the A/c was opened on line, the Certificate had to go to Liverpool, by Fax. Which the branch duly did.

Since then nothing much has happened!!

As far as I can tell the Certificate has been scanned into their system and it's "diarised" (their term) to be actioned on 22/12/08, whatever that means!

I therefore have been asked to wait until Monday 22/12/08 then call again for an update!

So basically, the money's in the account, the rate is fixed at 5.75% (I believe) and the ISA's still Void!!!!

WATCH THIS SPACE (I'll update next week)

How can an enormous savings organisation like Halifax, not have a streamlined process to allow them to "capture" a large slice of the Millions of Icesave ISA pounds that must be sloshing around somewhere? There must be tens of thousands of Icesave ISA savers looking for a good home for their funds but neither the Halifax branch network, nor their help desk knew what to do! Absolutely amazing!!

I'll let you know where I end up with this saga.

Cheers and thanks again for the advice

John

We have had the same experiences .Calling in a Halifax Branch to verify your ID docs or hand in your ISA cert is definitely a challenge to their staff,they all appear clueless and have to consult computer endlessly or go off to ask somebody .We have rung up recently to try and get our account up and running on line and --they appear to have lost our cheques which cleared our Bank ages ago..I have been told to go to local branch and ask where my money is.I have said it's up to them surely to find our funds we have paid our cheques in and got receipts This has been going on since 1/12.Not too bad really considering this new efficient electronic banking age. .

Hi there John & Omala

Sorry to hear that your experiences with Halifax have not been a smooth as mine seems to have been - I can only add the "usual disclaimer" that eveyone seems to add these days, soemething about the views of the author are not necessarily correct etc etc!

Seriously though, I got my certificate abut a week ago (15th I think) and took it straight into my local branch who duly copied it and sent it off for me. I rang them yesterday to be told that it was still being processed but not to worry as the interest would be back dated from the date of application and would run from a year from that date.

All in all, that suits me fine and I'm just happy that I managed to lock the cash away with a decent rate before eveything plummeted days afterwards!

Let me know how you get on and I will do the same once I recieve notification that my account has been fully processed

Cheers and Merry Xmas!