Premium Bonds Article Discussion Area

bogleboogle

IanManc said:

That's not the low end for easy access savers accounts. Higher rates might exist, but not much higher or many. I would go as far as to say that most easy access savers now pay 0.01-0.05% interest, so my range was pretty generous. 

A quick search of Moneyfacts reveals that 234 easy access accounts are currently available, of which 6 pay 0%, 59 pay your range of .01% to .05%, and 169 pay more than your range, with the highest being NS&I Income Bonds at 1.16% and their Direct Saver paying 1%.

Or to put it more succinctly, you're wrong.  😉

That is extremely misleading at best. 

To illustrate, let's take one example from your list of 169 easy access savers that apparently pay >0.05% interest from that website: "Barclays Bank Blue Rewards Saver". This account nominally pays a 0.5% interest rate. However, this is misleading for a number of reasons. Firstly, that account is only available to "Blue Rewards" members at Barclays (i.e. a very small portion of the population). Secondly, it's clearly not an "easy access" account - the 0.5% rate is ONLY if you make ZERO withdrawals. If you make even one withdrawal, the rate falls to 0.01%. 

So clearly that account has no place in a comparison of rates offered by "easy access savers accounts" and, as a result, your statistics are meaningless. 

Paul_Herring

Do I hear "No True Scotsman" being murmured?

IanManc

bogleboogle said:

IanManc said:

That's not the low end for easy access savers accounts. Higher rates might exist, but not much higher or many. I would go as far as to say that most easy access savers now pay 0.01-0.05% interest, so my range was pretty generous. 

A quick search of Moneyfacts reveals that 234 easy access accounts are currently available, of which 6 pay 0%, 59 pay your range of .01% to .05%, and 169 pay more than your range, with the highest being NS&I Income Bonds at 1.16% and their Direct Saver paying 1%.

Or to put it more succinctly, you're wrong.  😉

That is extremely misleading at best. 

To illustrate, let's take one example from your list of 169 easy access savers that apparently pay >0.05% interest from that website: "Barclays Bank Blue Rewards Saver". This account nominally pays a 0.5% interest rate. However, this is misleading for a number of reasons. Firstly, that account is only available to "Blue Rewards" members at Barclays (i.e. a very small portion of the population). Secondly, it's clearly not an "easy access" account - the 0.5% rate is ONLY if you make ZERO withdrawals. If you make even one withdrawal, the rate falls to 0.01%. 

So clearly that account has no place in a comparison of rates offered by "easy access savers accounts" and, as a result, your statistics are meaningless. 

Your assertion was patently and obviously wrong and your attempt to justify it is pitiful. And everyone can see that.

IanManc

Paul_Herring said:

IanManc said:

That's not the low end for easy access savers accounts. Higher rates might exist, but not much higher or many. I would go as far as to say that most easy access savers now pay 0.01-0.05% interest, so my range was pretty generous. 

A quick search of Moneyfacts reveals that 234 easy access accounts are currently available, of which 6 pay 0%, 59 pay your range of .01% to .05%, and 169 pay more than your range, with the highest being NS&I Income Bonds at 1.16% and their Direct Saver paying 1%.

Or to put it more succinctly, you're wrong.  😉

Stop it Ian; you're spoiling his rhetoric with facts.

🤣  🤣  🤣  🤣  🤣

eskbanker

polymaff said:

eskbanker said:

polymaff said:
If you accept that, say, £10,000+ in Premium Bonds will deliver a pretty regular income, tax-free of approximately 90% of the declared prize fund rate - then it isn't gambling.

But, at the risk of going over old ground, a far-from-insignificant 13% of those holding £10K for five years will win less than 70% of that declared rate (the percentage winning less than 90% will obviously be higher), so it's hard to avoid the fundamental concept of luck when measuring the variable returns with PBs, whether or not we must persist in discussing if it's accurate or relevant to label it as gambling!

That is so out of kilter with the posts in this thread that one can only marvel at the good fortune of those posters.

Deliberately out of kilter with those perpetuating an ultimately futile bald-men-fighting-over-a-comb circular debate about whether PBs should be categorised as gambling, but also pointing out the logical absurdity of 'if you ignore the odds of something not happening, then it's a dead cert'!

dcs34

If you're money isn't earning 2.02% then you're not doing it right...and that's an easy access account (albeit variable rate)

bigadaj

dcs34 said:

If you're money isn't earning 2.02% then you're not doing it right...and that's an easy access account (albeit variable rate)

But an extra tenner a year isn't going to change too many people's lives.

bogleboogle

IanManc said:

bogleboogle said:

IanManc said:

That's not the low end for easy access savers accounts. Higher rates might exist, but not much higher or many. I would go as far as to say that most easy access savers now pay 0.01-0.05% interest, so my range was pretty generous. 

A quick search of Moneyfacts reveals that 234 easy access accounts are currently available, of which 6 pay 0%, 59 pay your range of .01% to .05%, and 169 pay more than your range, with the highest being NS&I Income Bonds at 1.16% and their Direct Saver paying 1%.

Or to put it more succinctly, you're wrong.  😉

That is extremely misleading at best. 

To illustrate, let's take one example from your list of 169 easy access savers that apparently pay >0.05% interest from that website: "Barclays Bank Blue Rewards Saver". This account nominally pays a 0.5% interest rate. However, this is misleading for a number of reasons. Firstly, that account is only available to "Blue Rewards" members at Barclays (i.e. a very small portion of the population). Secondly, it's clearly not an "easy access" account - the 0.5% rate is ONLY if you make ZERO withdrawals. If you make even one withdrawal, the rate falls to 0.01%. 

So clearly that account has no place in a comparison of rates offered by "easy access savers accounts" and, as a result, your statistics are meaningless. 

Your assertion was patently and obviously wrong and your attempt to justify it is pitiful. And everyone can see that.

I didn't attempt to justify my assertion; instead, I merely showed how pathetically flawed the 'evidence' you adduced in support of your (opposing) assertion was. And given your total inability to respond to the points raised or defend your woefully weak use of statistics, I'd say that's a job well done.

Best,
BB

IanManc

bogleboogle said:

IanManc said:

bogleboogle said:

IanManc said:

That's not the low end for easy access savers accounts. Higher rates might exist, but not much higher or many. I would go as far as to say that most easy access savers now pay 0.01-0.05% interest, so my range was pretty generous. 

A quick search of Moneyfacts reveals that 234 easy access accounts are currently available, of which 6 pay 0%, 59 pay your range of .01% to .05%, and 169 pay more than your range, with the highest being NS&I Income Bonds at 1.16% and their Direct Saver paying 1%.

Or to put it more succinctly, you're wrong.  😉

That is extremely misleading at best. 

To illustrate, let's take one example from your list of 169 easy access savers that apparently pay >0.05% interest from that website: "Barclays Bank Blue Rewards Saver". This account nominally pays a 0.5% interest rate. However, this is misleading for a number of reasons. Firstly, that account is only available to "Blue Rewards" members at Barclays (i.e. a very small portion of the population). Secondly, it's clearly not an "easy access" account - the 0.5% rate is ONLY if you make ZERO withdrawals. If you make even one withdrawal, the rate falls to 0.01%. 

So clearly that account has no place in a comparison of rates offered by "easy access savers accounts" and, as a result, your statistics are meaningless. 

Your assertion was patently and obviously wrong and your attempt to justify it is pitiful. And everyone can see that.

I didn't attempt to justify my assertion; instead, I merely showed how pathetically flawed the 'evidence' you adduced in support of your (opposing) assertion was. And given your total inability to respond to the points raised or defend your woefully weak use of statistics, I'd say that's a job well done.

Best,
BB

That's very funny.  😂

IanManc

eskbanker said:

polymaff said:

eskbanker said:

polymaff said:
If you accept that, say, £10,000+ in Premium Bonds will deliver a pretty regular income, tax-free of approximately 90% of the declared prize fund rate - then it isn't gambling.

But, at the risk of going over old ground, a far-from-insignificant 13% of those holding £10K for five years will win less than 70% of that declared rate (the percentage winning less than 90% will obviously be higher), so it's hard to avoid the fundamental concept of luck when measuring the variable returns with PBs, whether or not we must persist in discussing if it's accurate or relevant to label it as gambling!

That is so out of kilter with the posts in this thread that one can only marvel at the good fortune of those posters.

Deliberately out of kilter with those perpetuating an ultimately futile bald-men-fighting-over-a-comb circular debate about whether PBs should be categorised as gambling, but also pointing out the logical absurdity of 'if you ignore the odds of something not happening, then it's a dead cert'!

Do you argue over combs a lot Eskie?  😜

I'm in the "it is gambling" camp, but I can see that if you've got £50k of premium bonds you're much more likely to win around the average number of prizes a year and get close to the likely non-big-prize return of about 1.2%, which is so close to NS&I's easy access rate of 1.16% which is available to everyone with £50k that it is barely a gamble at all. As well as that, if you're a higher rate taxpayer then the tax free status of premium bonds means that the odds are well in your favour.

At the other end of the scale, if you've only £100 in premium bonds then you're very unlikely to win anything, while you could earn a whole £1 in interest a year on NS&I's easy access rate which is available to anyone with £1 or more. Really you'd be throwing away £1 each year rather than gambling with it, so you could argue that too isn't a gamble but a certain loss.

However, having £100 in Premium Bonds does let you dream of winning £1million at a net loss of about 8 pence per draw - and you've got to be it to win it.  😉