Hi, I'm a 25 year old Accountant living in London. So, I guess I'll have a few comments to make abou...
Hi, I'm a 25 year old Accountant living in London. So, I guess I'll have a few comments to make about money related things!
Member since:22.10.2002
Reviews:20
Sorry, those of you who've read my Egg Credit card comments will be bored of my bad egg jokes now!
Egg offer fantastic allround value for money, and a very good service. I use many of their services which I list below.
SAVINGS ACCOUNT Opening Opening an account is really easy being done online. However Money Laundering regulations demand that all documents are in hard copy so you receive a completed application form to sign. Also, you need to prove your identity. However, they make it convenient (postage paid envelopes, pre-printed documents for you to just sign and date).
Servicing The egg website is really easy to use and is convenient to make payments to and from your current account. I've opened about 5 different savings accounts:
Christmas Account into which I pay a set amount each month so that Christmas
is easily affordable;
Investor Account into which I pay a set amount each month to eventually invest in a shares ISA (this is an Egg requirement);
Credit Card Reserve Account into which I pay my credit card bill and keep until the payment is due to be made, when I release it back to my current account;
General Savings into which I pay a set amount each month to offset any unexpected expenses (washing machine breakdown etc).
I know this looks complicated, but it means that I can earn 4% gross which is far better than leaving cash in my current account at less than 1% gross!
Simplicity The accounts can be tailored for your needs (eg monthly payments, one off payments) and they all come with 4% interest if you opt for an internet only account.
ISA Opening Again, opening is really easy, and tho only necessary addition is your National Insurance number for the tax benefit (you need to be over 16). I opted for a stocks and shares mini ISA.
Servicing You service this on line, and can buy and sell either the basic package offered by Egg (they offer simple Tracker ISAs which track the main share indices, or Growth ISAs, Technology, Global Opportunities etc) or more complex ISAs purchased from anyone who offers them (through their fund supermarket). Be wary, though, and thoroughly investigate!
The one problem with the ISA service is that you have to have an Egg Savings account with them to do this. This is a pain as you have to firstly transfer cash from your current account to this account and then transfer from this to the ISA.
Simplicity You can keep this one as simple or complicated as you want to. At a basic level it's simple to set one up and invest. However, you can be active and select your own funds to complicate things. You can get dividends and interest paid to your savings account or reinvested.
Disadvantages The main disadvantages of the accounts are that you can't monitor historic progress of your investments so I've had to set up my own spreadsheet to map out the increase and decrease in performance of my investments. Also, it takes a few days for your investment to clear the system (by which time the price of the shares will have changed). It's difficult to therefore know when you buy the shares how many this will buy.
CREDIT CARD If you want to review my opinion on credit cards, see the Egg Credit card opinion written by me.
GENERAL Money Manager The Egg Money Manager allows you to link all your online bank accounts to one place (which is a fantastic idea) and it simplifies managing money. However, some accounts can't be linked (eg my Morethan credit card) which is a pain. Be careful as some accounts take a long time to load onto the Egg Money Manager as well (eg My Co-OperativeBank account never seems to display a balance).
Customer Service Their customer service is good, and the phone service means that you get to speak to someone really quickly. However, you do have to go through a computer (unlike FirstDirect). After you speak to them they are very helpful and will be able to do almost anything over the phone (except authorise compensation for when things go wrong, which has to be done on paper/e-mail).
Navigation The website is very user friendly and has recently been updated. However, the investment side of the site is still quite old and when you go into that to look at your investments, you have to log off afterwards as there's no facility to go back to look at your other accounts.
Overall Overall Egg offer a really good package. I think I'd transfer my current account to them as well if they offered one. Still, no bank makes any money from offering current accounts to mere mortals like us, so I don't blame them for that one!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
I find them good enough for my needs, good opinion.
glitterprincess 28.11.2002 15:59
I've never really thought of using Egg for anything, apart from breakfast, that is ... ok, that was crap, not even close to a joke was it? Sorry ... *lol* Jami xx
Advantages: Simple application process. Very flexible personal finance. Low APR Disadvantages: Telesales staff very pushy with the payment protection sales.
alflavor 22.09.2001 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
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