Best account for children

Pinklepurr

I have 2 children under the age of 10 who each currently have a Nationwide Smart Save account currently paying 4.95% interest. They both have approx £1400 in their account which is birthday & christmas money that we've always put away for them.

Can anyone tell me if there is a better paying childrens account on the market?

Ideally we'd like one with a branch and passbook where we can put lump sums of cash (birthday money etc) into, but would we be better off setting up a regular saver for each of them?

Thanks

RHYSDAD

Hi there, i've been doing a bit of research around this subject for our son and the best i've seen so far is with the Halifax and it's a childrens regular saver which pays 10.00%AER/gross pa for the first year. It works by allowing you to effectively set up a trust for your kids and then it transfers the funds to another account with Halifax paying a lower rate, the best of which is the save4it account paying 5.05%. There are a couple of snags with the regular saver account though; you can't make any withdrawls in the first year, if you do, you lose the 10% rate and another snag is you have to invest between £10 minimum and £100 maximum each month. But i would consider only investing up to £1000 in the year, otherwise you might be paying tax on any interest earned over £100!!! But well worth considering for 10% interest rate for a year!!! Have a look on their website. Hope this helps.

http://www.halifax.co.uk/savings/childregularsaver.shtml

Pinklepurr

Thanks for that info. I'll look into it.