rabobank

delly

Ok, seems to be a lot of aggro here but i'll give my 2cents anyhow.

After I sold my house 2 years ago I had about €20k left over, which I would be using to get stuff done with my new house. I had this sitting in my AIB account earning me no interest. Because I couldn't forecast when I'd need the money and how often I would need to make a withdrawal I wasn't going to lock it away in a savings account that would allow only a certain amount of withdrawals or long notice etc. Equally to that I was hardly going to invest in stocks.

When AIB introduced there free banking this account didn't qualify as I didn't need an unnecessary laser card, despite them telling me this was one of the conditions of getting free banking. So I have a €20k account in the black and they are charging me fees and no interest. Seriously, WTF?

So I went ahead and moved it to Rabo knowing that I could take the money out whenever I wanted too, and I would be earning a few quid as a bonus as well. A bit of a no brainer really.

Zaph

Seeing his comments here and on other threads, it appears that Sonnenblaum is unfamiliar with the concepts of liquidity and risk. Not every investment decision has to be about absolute return, the main reason people use accounts such as those offered by Rabo is because they want instant access to their money. Most of the amounts involved are relatively small and will be used at a later date to fund something special, a holiday, a new car or kitchen for example, or are kept as a rainy day fund. The average depositor isn't going to want to risk the money for their holiday on shares that may make them more in the long term but could have lost them money when they need to pay for it. There is also the added factor that most depositors are relatively unsophisticated when it comes to investing, and I don't mean that as a slur in any way, and don't necessarily have the skills required to research what the next "sure thing" is on the stock exchange.

Even if a depositor is capable of researching stocks, the risk factor then comes into the equation. As I said, most of the amounts deposited in Rabo are relatively small, although not necessarily in the opinion of the person depositing them. Depending on circumstances, a grand could be a fortune to someone, and they certainly don't want to risk it on the stock market. Of course that grand won't even buy them €1,000 worth of shares when you take brokerage into account, so they've lost money already. Sure, dividends and share price movements could make them a lot more over the long term, but sticking their grand into an account that will give them a rate that negates most of the effects of inflation is more more attrctive proposition to many people.