Business savings accounts

[Jack Turner]

Business Savings Accounts - any recommendations or advice? Business owner with spare cash.

 

[numbersrule]

When I looked into this a while ago Aldemore Bank were top of the easy access savings charts at 3.2%. But that may have changed now that interest rates are going down. The Aldemore account/statement page seems a little dated compared with the latest App type offerings but if that does not phase you maybe Aldemore could be attractive.

If you can lock away for longer there may be better/higher rates on fixed interest options.

I saw recently that there may be opportunities for investment in Government Gilts, again, if you can lock away for longer as opposed to easy access.

If you really need easy access it seems options are a bit limited though. I think this is part of the conspiracy between the banks and the Government which has the aim of ensuring that UK businesses invest in their own growth, as opposed to growing their cash.

 

[NickZ]

What a word, Business Saving account.
A business has to generate money and what it can spare should go into business.
Not into a bank where you park your investment money in order to get 5%.

 

[Frank the Insurance guy]

What a word, Business Saving account.
A business has to generate money and what it can spare should go into business.
Not into a bank where you park your investment money in order to get 5%.

Business Savings account is useful to put away your tax liabilities until paid to HMRC - I wouldn't want to reinvest in the business to then find I can't pay my tax bill when its due!

 

[Ozzy]

A +1 to what @Frank the Insurance guy just said about why a business could and should consider a savings account; we're doing the same as we have some reserve that we do not wish to speculate and wish to put to one side for later use.

If you have more than £500k as a minimum investment look at services such as Flagstone that allows you to spread the cash cross a variety of deposits sticking within the £85k guarantee threshold.

Other than that, here is another +1 for Aldermore but also consider Virgin Money. Both offer deposit accounts with instant access should it be needed. There is also Shawbrook, although didn't dig into that one too much, just a name my accountant gave me.

 

[fisicx]

What a word, Business Saving account.
A business has to generate money and what it can spare should go into business.
Not into a bank where you park your investment money in order to get 5%.

Depends on the business. I keep money aside in a savings account to pay bills at the appropriate time.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Business Savings Accounts - any recommendations or advice? Business owner with spare cash

Are you a sole trader or is it for a limited company?

Also roughly how much and how long do you want to save for?

 

[DontAsk]

What a word, Business Saving account.
A business has to generate money and what it can spare should go into business.
Not into a bank where you park your investment money in order to get 5%.

It's not always possible to scale things instantly.

What it can spare goes into my pocket

 

[Gettingthereslowly]

Not quiet easy access, but Cambridge & Counties does a 31 day notice account @ 4.05% currently. I've used them/good old fashioned customer service.

Can think of lots of reasons why a company might have significant cash savings:

- already fully invested in the business/can't grow it anymore due to other constraints
- already utilised tax efficient mechanisms for withdrawing cash from the business, and not wanting to incur higher tax rates (used up personal allowances, pension contributions)
- planning a big purchase in the next few months/couple of years, e.g. machinery or building
- are planning to wind down/close the business with an MVL (members voluntary liquidation), and are moving everything to cash to make it possible

 

[Jack Turner]

Are you a sole trader or is it for a limited company?

Also roughly how much and how long do you want to save for?

Ltd Company, Circa 200k

 

[NewKidinTown]

we use both Aldermore & Shawbrook current rates are as follows:

Aldermore easy access 3.25% 1 year fix 4.5%
Shawbrook easy access 3.66% 1year fix 5.02%

as ever beware FSCS limit of £85k and above all Do your own research

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Ltd Company, Circa 200k

With £200,000 spare cash sat in a limited company you really need some advice from an accountant, you need much more than a suggestion on where to put some savings.

 

[Jack Turner]

we use both Aldermore & Shawbrook current rates are as follows:

Aldermore easy access 3.25% 1 year fix 4.5%
Shawbrook easy access 3.66% 1year fix 5.02%

as ever beware FSCS limit of £85k and above all Do your own research

Ended up with the following:

TIDE Bank - 4.25% instant access (variable)
Cynergy Bank - 4.00% instant access (variable)
Shawbrook Bank - 4.45% 100 day notice (variable)

 

[nelioneil]

Ended up with the following:

TIDE Bank - 4.25% instant access (variable)
Cynergy Bank - 4.00% instant access (variable)
Shawbrook Bank - 4.45% 100 day notice (variable)

Not sure how much people put their trust (pun intended) into trustpilot but Cynergy has 27% of reviews at 1 star, which is frankly appalling.

Tide is not much better at 17%

Shawbrook seems to be where people are most happy - only 7% give it a one star.

 

[Jack Turner]

Not sure how much people put their trust (pun intended) into trustpilot but Cynergy has 27% of reviews at 1 star, which is frankly appalling.

Tide is not much better at 17%

Shawbrook seems to be where people are most happy - only 7% give it a one star.

I think a lot of folk have graded Cynergy down due to their pay-in process.

It looks like they’re trying to up their level of security by adding confirmation of payee, which in turn takes a roughly 2/3 working days to activate, otherwise the account details are not recognised.

Other than that, it seems OK.

 

[Ozzy]

I would also add that the issue with reviews, in general, is that someone is more motivated to leave a negative review than a positive one, just by human nature. So reviews are more likely to be negative than positive unless the company makes an effort to drive people to leave reviews (hence we as UKBF have only recently started automatically emailing new members who join asking them to leave a review on Google)

 

[DontAsk]

I would also add that the issue with reviews, in general, is that someone is more motivated to leave a negative review than a positive one, just by human nature. So reviews are more likely to be negative than positive unless the company makes an effort to drive people to leave reviews (hence we as UKBF have only recently started automatically emailing new members who join asking them to leave a review on Google)

Agree, entirely but...

Consider similar products with, say, 100 5* reviews but one also has one 1* and the other has 50 1*. This is still a useful metric IMHO.

I always refuse requests for reviews like that. You, or whoever, need to earn them, good or bad.

 

[Ozzy]

I always refuse requests for reviews like that. You, or whoever, need to earn them, good or bad.

At the risk of derailing the thread, the issue all businesses have is that people will seek out an opportunity to leave a negative review in a rage of dissatisfaction, but simply just won't bother or make any effort to go out of their way to leave a positive one because they're content and moving on with their life.

 

[Karimbo]

For business accounts, aldermore was the best one. The rate isn't anything like consumer savings rates.

There was some others who had higher rates, but they were banks I ne we heard of or had dubious reviews.

Cynergy bank (formerly bank of cyprus), has bad reviews on Google. A business owner was saying they had an instant access and needed to make a transfer out of their instant access. They got fobbed off with "technical issues" and couldn't get all their money when they wanted it. Even though its instant access. I don't want to say anything libellous but common sense would tell you why they did what they did.

Aldermore is a bigger established bank and I have done test withdrawals to make sure they will have my money to hand when I need it.

 

[Jack Turner]

For business accounts, aldermore was the best one. The rate isn't anything like consumer savings rates.

There was some others who had higher rates, but they were banks I ne we heard of or had dubious reviews.

Cynergy bank (formerly bank of cyprus), has bad reviews on Google. A business owner was saying they had an instant access and needed to make a transfer out of their instant access. They got fobbed off with "technical issues" and couldn't get all their money when they wanted it. Even though its instant access. I don't want to say anything libellous but common sense would tell you why they did what they did.

Aldermore is a bigger established bank and I have done test withdrawals to make sure they will have my money to hand when I need it.

I might end up opening an Aldermore account and splitting the balance between Aldermore and Cynergy.

So far, I've not really had any issues with these accounts, however proof will be when I try and withdraw.

 

[Karimbo]

I'm going to briefly switch from aldermore to tide to get the £200 savings bonus.

This promo appeared and disappeared very quickly. I managed to locate the t&cs for the promo here: https://www.tide.co/terms/SAVINGS200_tnc/

It's one of the easiest cashback offer I've seen, just have £2000 in the savings account over the line at 31st April. I've done other cashback where you'd have to keep the fund in the account at higher amounts and for way longer.

Read it through carefully because you need that code on signup.

The rate is better with the promotional incentive. the cashback of £200 is really nice, and they give a bit of a bosst.

To be honest, I do not want the large amount of company funds to be on my phone, a thumb print away from being unlocked at knifepoint by criminals.

I like the aldermore is a bit "dumb" and has no trace of it on my phone apart from the OTP passcodes I receive at login. I feel it's safer and slightly more locked away than tide savings where it's instant witdraw and easy withdraw.

 

[Karimbo]

Bumping this^^ they are not advertiisng this £200 cashback offer online. so I would highly recommend it being used. They also offer an additional £100 cashback if you do a "switch" which involves shutting down your previous bank account to do a permanent switch. they dont seem to require too much in the way of direct debits so you can use it to shut down random business bank accounrt you dont use to get the £100.

 

[Karimbo]

Got paid, met the criteria to have a balance with them on 30th April, got paid 7th May. NOICE