Subscribe to The Money StopNews Feed

Browse > Home / News, News-Banking / Further disappointment for ING Direct customers

Further disappointment for ING Direct customers

July 26, 2007 by admin  
Filed under News, News-Banking

Leave a Comment

ING Direct customers are facing increased disappointment when it comes to their savings, with ING once again failing to pass on the interest rate rise that was applied by the Bank of England.

banking problemsThe online savings account from ING Direct now pays 5% to savers, which is well below the best rate savings account and stands at 0.75% less than the base interest rate. The account initially attracted over a million customers when it advertised its impressive interest rates in 2003, but since then ING has come under fire for leaving interest rates to stagnate despite a series of rate rises.

The Websaver account from ING will also see interest rates remain static, at 5.5%. The rate on this savings account was actually higher than this initially, opening at 5.65%, but was cur to 5.5% before the interest rate rise in May of this year. Since this time the interest rate has not gone up, despite Bank of England rises of 0.25% in both May and July. ING Direct was hugely popular amongst savers previously, but has lately received a great deal of negative press over its refusal to pass on interest rate rises.

According to recent figures customers of ING Direct have taken over £3 billion worth of savings from their accounts and placed the money with other banks as a result of poor interest rates based on the current base rate. Although interest rates in the UK have gone from 4.5% to 5.75% in the past year through a series of five interest rate rises, the interest rate on the ING Direct savings account has risen by only 0.5% in this time.

According to ING Direct other banks get around this by offering lower rates on other accounts. One official stated: ‘If these savings providers had to pay all of their customers our 5% it would cost them a fortune and they wouldn’t be able to afford to keep offering their headline grabbing accounts.’

Tom Smith
26th July 2007

Tags: accounts, customers, base, interest. lower, cost, Banking

Tags:

Related Entries

  • Is HSBC favouring its richer customers?
    • A recent report has suggested that High Street bank, HSBC, is giving more favourable treatment to its better off customers with its Internet arm First Direct than to its poorer HSBC customers. Officials claim that
  • Bank claims that most consumers won’t be affected by new charges
    • Following its recent announcement to start charging UK customer a ten pounds monthly fee if they did not meet certain criteria, the First Direct Internet bank, a subsidiary of the HSBC Bank, has been defending
  • Isa deadline approaching
    • Consumers are being warned that they must not wait too long before putting their money in an individual savings account (Isa).The Association of Investment Companies (AIC) is telling consumers that waiting until the last minute
  • Direct debit costing insurance customers millions
    • Millions of people are paying too much for their contents insurance because they are being charged for paying by direct debit.New research from Abbey shows that 9.3 million of us are being forced to pay
  • Rows erupt over energy bills increases
    • According to recent report a number of rows have erupted over direct debit payments on energy bills, with many concerned that people are being charged way over the odds on their direct debits by the
  • Interest payments on current accounts to be abolished by First Direct
    • The Internet banking arm of the HSBC, First Direct, has announced that it will be cutting interest charges on current accounts for customers. According to officials from the bank the money that is saved from
  • Text message banking makes balance checking easier
    • New banking systems using mobile phones are helping in the fight against debt, it was claimed this week.First Direct said that its more recently introduced services such as mobile phone and internet banking were proving
  • Will other banks follow First Direct and charge fees on current accounts?
    • Following the shock announcement recently made by officials from First Direct Bank, a subsidiary of HSBC, that it intends to start charging customers that do not pay a certain amount into their current accounts each

Speak Your Mind

Tell us what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!