3% interest for plus users

Hello everyone,

Im a little confused on the 3% interest. Can I keep more than Ā£4k in my acount and still be paid the interest up to the Ā£4K, or does it have to be less than Ā£4K to be eligible?

Many thanks

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You can hold as much as you like but the interest will be paid only on the 4k max.

I was speaking with customer cervice chat, and i asked that i wasnt paid on the 11th working day, and she told me that i was holding more than Ā£4k

That does not sound correct. Freetrade gives the following example on its blog:

Letā€™s say you are waiting to invest Ā£5,000 across your two Freetrade accounts: you have Ā£3,000 cash in your ISA and Ā£2,000 in your GIA. We will apply the interest to the full Ā£3,000 in the ISA first, and then to the Ā£1,000 remaining in your Ā£4,000 cash cap from the GIA.

sheā€™s wrong

Correct which led me to believe that more than Ā£4K could be held. I also wasnt paid the interest

If it is money that i am not using, why should i not use it to decrease my monthly subscription, no?

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2 weeks ago I wouldā€™ve agreed but right now I like having some cash around :joy:

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Hm! I suppose you can try again with the customer service in-app chat and cite their blogā€¦ Or direct-message one of the Customer Ops managers through the forum (Customer ops - freetrade - Freetrade Community)? Or email (Dedicated channels and how weā€™re scaling support for you, 15th Feb 2021)? That was a really weird response for them to give you.

sameā€¦ would put it all in stonks!!!

Dont get me wrong i would invest all of it, but atm im just waiting out to see what the market does

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Thank you for your reply :+1:

yeah i supposeā€¦ just a bit pointless in my opinion to have it sitting there doing nothing for 12 quid a monthā€¦ hell even if you invested 500 quid of it on something that earnt you 2% youā€™d pay for your subscription.

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At this point whatever i have invested in has dipped, inculding recently. So im waiting for it to dip further and then buy

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thats fair enough!! i feel your pain, red is my favourite colourā€¦ on a car! :smiley:

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Ā£500 x 2% is Ā£10
So ā€œifā€ an investment rose by 2% within month surely it would only ā€œpay for your subscriptionā€ if sold - and for one month ?

And then one would have to repeat, month after month.

If only investing (trading) was so certainā€¦:thinking:

Surely more realistic is to invest Ā£4,000 in something with a Dividend Yield of 3% (or better)ā€¦ or invest Ā£3,000 in something yielding 4% (or better) ?
(Perhaps an Investment Trust with payments at least Quarterly ?)

Does the 3% interest apply to cash thatā€™s held in a SIPP account @Freetrade_Team ? - the page at Earn 3% interest on cash in Freetrade Plus mentions GIA and ISA but isnā€™t very clear on whether SIPP is included.

Answering my own questionā€¦ no thereā€™s no interest on SIPP account.

So if you had a spare 4K lying around you could put it into your Freetrade account, earn about Ā£12 per month which would basically pay for you to have the plus account?

Is that correct?

My calculation was a bit different to most peoples, I guess, as I wanted an ISA anyway, but didnā€™t especially need the plus features. I still went for plus just because of this 3% offer.

For for me, the interest will exactly cancel out the plus fee, so effectively Iā€™m saving Ā£3 per month on the ISA fees. To get Ā£36 in interest on Ā£4000, Iā€™d need a rate of 0.9% which is better than pretty much every instant access savings account.

Iā€™d like to keep spare cash easily accessible, but waiting a week for it shouldnā€™t be the end of the world, so it seems like a good deal to leave an extra Ā£4000 cash in my ISA, as I want to invest it slowly over the next few months anyway.

Also, if the interest is paid directly into the ISA, itā€™ll effectively increase my ISA allowance by that much too.