What is best to do with this money?

[amibeingacunexttuesday]

My 23 year old dd has almost 10k saved towards a house deposit. It is currently in a Hsbc savings account with 0.65% interest, however I can't help thinking that there must be something better. I have had a quick google but most of them seem to have a deposit limit e.g 100 pounds month which obviously isn't any good as the money is already saved. Are there any accounts available where it could just be transferred straight over? Dd went into the Hsbc branch to talk to them however they were very unhelpful. Thanks.

Help to buy ISA.
Santander 123 current account, 1.5% up to 20000 balance.
Regular saver account etc

You need to pay bills out of the Santander 123 account or else it costs a fiver a month - well it costs a fiver a month anyway, but if you have a normal household's worth of bills coming out of it, you'll probably get more than a fiver's worth of cashback to offset it.

She needs to make sure she has either a Help to Buy ISA or a Lifetime ISA - Moneysavingexpert gives the ins and outs about getting one etc and putting in the maximum amount of money.

Then there's a couple of instant access accounts that pay 1.5% or if she's not planning to buy in the next year or two, you can get slightly more with a fixed term account where you put the money in and leave it there for a year or two, earning 2-2.5%

If she's still saving she should make sure she's putting the max allowed in whichever FTB isa she chooses and then look at regular savers if she doesn't need the money in the next year.

Moneysavingexpert and moneysupermarket will help search for the best one.

Also she needs to make sure that she's on the electoral roll and her credit file is in A1 condition, and that her spending looks frugal to help with affordability tests if there's a risk that she can only just afford what she needs to borrow.

If she doesn’t need the money soon then I would suggest an ISA.

She'd get 25% extra on a help to buy ISA, but there's a limit to how much you can put in per year/month and get the bonus.

It's explained here.

The help to buy ISA would need to be opened by November. NatWest have one at 2.47% but you can only put £1200 in initially and £200 per month.

She might need to split it.

How soon will she want it to buy somewhere? Start there. Any instant access savings will be low.

I’d definitely get a Help To Buy ISA or a LISA (as PP say, check out Moneysavingexpert) and put the max in to start then drip-feed it over. There are a lot of regular savings accounts too which you can drip-feed.

The easiest option is never going to be the highest interest.

Premium bonds worth considering?

Probably looking to buy in about 2 years. Just reluctant to put it in an account she can't access in case she needs it suddenly e.g car breaks and she needs a new one so has to raid the account a bit to put towards a new one.

Splitting it sounds worthwhile then- max out her LISA/help to buy account for this year (remember it gets a 25% topup from hmrc, no interest rate will get near that). You can put 4K in a LISA (as a lump sum or bit by bit) each year, so that might work better for her. And the rest somewhere more accessible for now, then move more in April.

It is worth considering SWITCHING her existing current account to the Nat West Reward current account. There is a switch incentive of £150, then cash back on bills albeit with a £2 monthly fee (which you should make back).
You do have to transfer in £1500 each month, but that can be from anywhere (your account, i.e. send it over and then have it returned a couple of days later, a pay check, another account with only £1500 in).
£150 is equivalent to 1.5% interest, and you’d be free to switch again after you get to the end of their minimum duration, and bag another cash incentive.
I made about £1000 in two years by switching, although I opened 3 current accounts and kept switching them until I bought a house. I did need a good spreadsheet to do the planning however!

We have money in a 2yr bond with Castle Trust, £30k in gave us £2k interest on the last 2yr bond.