From: "Andrew Agerbak" 
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Alternatives to Woolwich for offset mortgage and downloadable statements
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 23:45:04 -0000

Next week, Woolwich are withdrawing all support for downloading statements 
into MS
Money. As I use this software to manage all my finances, I'm intending to 
leave Woolwich
for a bank which provides an offset mortgage product and downloadable 
statements (not just online banking)
I've been looking around elsewhere, and this is what I've come up with so 
far:

Barclays - amazingly enough, they intend to offer statement downloads
for Barclays Openplan, even though Woolwich Openplan will not.
This implies that Barlcays use a separate IT infrastructure for the
identical product - bizarre (especially as a Woolwich support person
told me that it was pressure from Barclays that caused Woolwich to
discontinue the MS Money support). Interest rates from 5.60% to 5.70%
depending on tie-in.

Natwest - now offer a "real" offset product with multiple accounts,
rather than just the rebadged "One" account they used to have.
Statement download available for all accounts. Interest
rate 5.65% (with a 1% discount for 3 months)

First Direct - Offer statement downloads. Slightly higher
rate of 5.75%

There are other banks offering attractive offset products (e.g.
Britannia, IF, Northern Rock, Newcastle BS), some with even better
rates, but they don't appear to offer statement downloads at all
(source: 
http://money.msn.co.uk/MyMoney/MicrosoftMoney/online/fininst/default.asp)
Likewise there are people like Nationwide who offer excellent MS Money
support, but don't seem to have an offset mortgage product.

Anyone know of any other banks offering an offset mortgage product with
MS Money support and a better rate than the above? In particular, any
suggestion of Nationwide offering an offset mortgage product, or of
Abbey re-introducing their offset product with an attractive rate?
Cheers,
Andrew