State savings have no online facility

More paperwork = need to have more human intervention = more overtime for staff etc ;)

It's actually incredible / disgraceful how many state / semi state entities and related services, still insist on hard copy documentation.
 
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Actually, I think they might be listening! I recently discovered that they have a new registration page. The forum rules won't allow me post links but if you visit the State Savings website you will find it fairly easily.

Register for Ireland State Savings Online | Ireland State Savings

Ireland State Savings Online is the easy way to manage your savings. Find out about the benefits of registering for State Savings Online. Begin Registration.
www.statesavings.ie www.statesavings.ie

Edit: Link added by moderator.
 
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I have to say I’ve found the customer service from State Savings to be absolutely shocking. Over a 5 year period, we tried to change our postal address 3 times with them, but they literally couldn’t execute the request. The concept appears to be great as long as you never ask for your money back. When we looked at the interest earned over an 8 year period of child allowance it equated to less than 1%. We pulled our money out and put it to work elsewhere.
 
State Savings / Prize Bonds can be bought online, the problem for me was they only accept debit cards, they do not accept any credit cards.

With my AIB anyway the maximum debit card transaction amount is €5k, so the only option for purchases over €5k for AIB customers is cheque or bank draft at the post office counter or by post.
 
HyperionDayz said:
When we looked at the interest earned over an 8 year period of child allowance it equated to less than 1%. We pulled our money out and put it to work elsewhere.
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So what you're really saying is, you "bought a pig in a bag", and now you're blaming someone else.
 
twofor1 said:
State Savings / Prize Bonds can be bought online, the problem for me was they only accept debit cards, they do not accept any credit cards.

With my AIB anyway the maximum debit card transaction amount is €5k, so the only option for purchases over €5k for AIB customers is cheque or bank draft at the post office counter or by post.
Click to expand...

Is this not total inefficiency? You can buy certs over the internet using a debit card only. You cannot set up single debit instructions as you can for making payments to Revenue. My debit card has a limit of 2,500 EUR. So I (literally) dusted off my cheque book and sent in the form with a cheque last week. Today I get - not the savings cert – but a letter with a receipt for amount of my cheque saying that the cert will be sent “in due course”. If you can make SDIs to Revenue why not to the NTMA?
 
I've the problem where I regularly bought Prize Bonds online as a form of saving with my Ulster Bank Debit Card, now with Ulster Bank's demise I've moved all my current account, Direct Debits and transactions to N26.
The State Savings payment gateway blocks N26 cards online and when I sent a request to buy a batch using the N26 (German) Iban, they sent a letter back refusing that as well.
I (maybe mistakenly) thought a European Firm couldn't discriminate based on a European Iban, let alone State Savings, especially for a bank that's been approved to operate as a bank in Ireland by the Central Bank for over 6 years.
My only current option it seems is to open a Basic (Free) Account with Bank of Ireland for the purpose of buying State Savings which does seem a bit extreme.
 
Probably a salutary lesson not to have pre-emptively left UB with no pressing reason to do so.
 
noproblem said:
So what you're really saying is, you "bought a pig in a bag", and now you're blaming someone else.
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Thanks for your input noproblem. I wouldn’t say we were very financially literate at the time, but I’m not aware of that many automatic saving mechanisms provided for the children’s allowance. Yes we signed up for a poor return from an ease of use perspective, but we didn’t sign up for an antiquated administrative system that hasn’t been informed of the basic tenets of customer service. The fact that the return is so poor made the decision to move easier, but I wouldn’t say blame was a factor here. The account served its purpose until it didn’t anymore - simple!
 
nicelives said:
especially for a bank that's been approved to operate as a bank in Ireland by the Central Bank for over 6 years.
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No it hasn't. It doesn't have an Irish license. It has "notified" the CBI that it offers services in Ireland under EU cross border provisions

Central Bank's only involvement would be related to marketing rules in Ireland
 
nicelives said:
The State Savings payment gateway blocks N26 cards online
Click to expand...

Interesting. It might be worth re-trying. I bought prize bonds online about 6 weeks ago using my N26 virtual card - no problem at all. Perhaps recheck your N26 app .... specifically your daily card limit setting. I think €2500 is the default but you can increase to €5000. Also I believe there is a hard limit of €20k per calendar month on N26 cards.
 
1dave123 said:
Interesting. It might be worth re-trying. I bought prize bonds online about 6 weeks ago using my N26 virtual card - no problem at all. Perhaps recheck your N26 app .... specifically your daily card limit setting. I think €2500 is the default but you can increase to €5000. Also I believe there is a hard limit of €20k per calendar month on N26 cards.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that Dave, will look further into it
 
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