Meteor Savings platform review

This savings platform offers lots of different accounts under one roof, but is it the best place to put your money?

Meteor savings accounts feature pretty regularly on our best buy tables, as seen by the “via Meteor” added to the end of their names. But it’s less obvious what the difference is between putting your money into Meteor or handing it directly to the provider. 

Meteor aren’t alone in offering this sort of service either, with the likes of Raisin, Hargreaves Lansdown and Prosper also providing platforms for people to save through. 

So, here’s the lowdown on these platforms, what they offer you, how they work and how they’re different from regular savings accounts. 

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What is Meteor Savings?

Meteor is a money management service with a savings platform, which means that when you sign up for it you get access to all of the savings accounts on the platform. In some cases, Meteor pays a boost on accounts, exclusive to when you go via Meteor — more on this below.

The idea of the platform is that, once deposited with Meteor, you can move your money between accounts easily, making it simpler to switch to accounts with better rates. Some platforms will go further, offering a service where your money is moved automatically to the best payer. That is, within the restrictions of the accounts themselves — you’d still need to give notice on a notice account and leave fixed accounts in place for their term.

It’s free to use, so you’re not paying for access to its services.

Savings accounts available with Meteor

You can save into both savings accounts and Cash ISAs using Meteor. Current options include:

• Easy access savings accounts
• Easy access ISAs
• Notice savings accounts
• Notice ISAs
• Fixed term savings accounts
• Fixed term ISAs

Partner banks

Meteor isn’t partnered with every savings account on the market, so you would limit yourself to only the partner banks on the platform. That doesn’t mean that you can’t transfer into and out of Meteor, though.

These are the partner banks available with Meteor Savings:

• AlRayan Bank
• Arbuthnot Direct (part of Arbuthnot Latham)
• HSBC Bank
• Isbank
• OakNorth
• Santander International
• Teachers Building Society
• UBL

Meteor Cash ISA

The Meteor Cash ISA works a little differently — it lets you put money across several different providers while keeping it all in one ISA wrapper.

Of course, given you can save into as many Cash ISAs as you like, as long as you don’t go over the £20,000 annual contribution allowance overall, this is something you can manage yourself. However, Meteor can help you stay on top of what money you’ve got where.

Again, though, this means that you might be limiting yourself to the interest rates that you can get with banks that aren’t partnered with Meteor.

Instead of seeing Meteor as one place to deposit all of your money, it could be worth seeing the individual accounts for their rates alongside the other accounts on the market. 

How the Meteor boost works

The Meteor Boost is paid in addition to the rate offered. So if an account pays a rate of 4.15% and there’s a Meteor Boost of 0.1%, then at the end of the term, you’ll be paid the 4.15% into the account, and the 0.1% will be paid into your general account as a cash bonus, not paid into your ISA.

The boost differs between accounts. Some accounts don’t have a boost at all, and the amount offered depends on the account. You can tell which ones have a boost because they have a red star with the text “Boosted by Meteor”. 

What’s the minimum amount you can save with Meteor?

Meteor has a deposit minimum of £500, but different partners have their own minimum amounts that you can save with them. For example AlRayan Bank’s one-year fix requires a minimum deposit of £1,000. 

How FSCS protection works with Meteor

Meteor acts as a hub for all of the individual accounts that it partners with, so the FSCS protection sits with the banks you save into. So if you choose to save into OakNorth via Meteor, your money is protected up to £120,000 across all accounts with OakNorth. Be careful, as some banks are bundled under the same protection — for example, Lloyds and Halifax share their FSCS protection, so you should only save up to £120,000 across the two banks to be fully protected.

Can you transfer into and out of Meteor?

You can transfer existing ISAs to Meteor through the platform. A Cash ISA transfer takes up to 15 days, while any other ISA transfer could take up to 30 days.

If you want to transfer your ISA out, you can do this with your chosen new provider.

Summary: is Meteor any good?