ICICI HiSave Savings Account Update
September 1st, 2005
The Indian-based bank ICICI made the headlines a couple of months ago when it launched its high-paying (5.4%) savings account, HiSave. I wrote at the time about how good a deal it was, but unfortunately it seems that it may have been too good to be true.
Since its launch, it has been appearing at the top of a lot of “best buy” tables for savings accounts, but money saving expert Martin Lewis has just removed it from his best buy list due to a catalogue of poor customer service highlighted on his forums.
It appears that many people trying to open accounts have experienced long delays, and from reading some of the posts on the forum there have been other problems which are far from reassuring. The bank themselves say that they have had problems as they didn’t anticipate the level of interest there would be in the account. Not really what you want to hear from an institution with whom you’re investing your hard-earned money.
Martin’s advice is for those who have already applied to continue with their application, but others should hold back for a while to see if they can sort the problems out.
I’m currently on the look out for a decent savings account (First Direct and Cahoot seem to be the most likely at the moment), so I’ll report back my findings when I’ve had time to do some research.
2 Comments on “ICICI HiSave Savings Account Update”
Dr Anne Summers, November 2nd, 2005 at 10:19 am
You should pass this information on to the Guardian. On p. 10 of its Money Section of 29 October, its ‘Wallet Workout’ feature recommends ICICI’s HiSAVE - though it isn’t mentioned in the neighbouring ‘Best Buys’ column.
By the way, the correct usage is ‘its high-paying’ and ‘its launch’ - NOT ‘it’s’ - which means ‘it is’, just as ‘I’m’ means ‘I am’.
Rob Lewis, November 2nd, 2005 at 10:56 am
Thanks for visiting Anne (great name, by the way!), I’ve posted an update above as ICICI appear to have got round all their problems and are once again appearing on the best buy tables (this post was made in early September).
Thanks for the grammar lesson too - I am generally pretty good with it, but I sometimes rush these posts so I probably missed those mistakes.
