bank accounts with in-credit interest?

frago

Dear all, I have the Nationwide FlexDirect and FlexPlus bank accounts, the interest rates are 5% and 3% respectively. However, from 1 November there will be no interest offered on the FlexPlus and the interest rate for my FlexDirect will go to 1%, as the initial 12-month promotional period is over. I was wondering whether there are any other easy access current bank accounts offering in-credit interest higher than Marcus. Thanks.

eskbanker

TSB Classic Plus (@ 3% on £1,500) is the only non-Nationwide current account I'm aware of that's paying more than 1.5%.

born_again

Santander 123 1.5% on up to £20K

Neil_Jones

Santander's main 123 account advertises that it pays 1.5% but this is gross and before your monthly fee. Your true rate is closer to 1.26% on this account assuming the full £20k in the acccount. The lower this figure the lower the effective rate gets, where below IIRC about £8k its fruitless.

However presumably you pay bills and I dare say they would be eligible for cashback under the 123 Account. Lite is the same as the normal account only with a cheaper monthly fee and no interest... It could be slightly more lucrative than just sticking with Marcus depending on your bills?

Also have you considered looking at regular savers? They are easy access but you need to consider how they work interest wise.

ColdIron

born_again wrote: »

Santander 123 1.5% on up to £20K

But it costs £60 pa so a lot of that interest will disappear in fees. It does pay cashback but I suspect that most MDSers will have switched to the 123 Lite as it pays the same cashback for £12. There is little point to the full fat 123 these days

eskbanker

frago wrote: »

Just thinking out loud here... are NS&I premium bonds a good idea? I've never had one, are they easy access? Anything I should be wary of?

Poor and unpredictable return, especially with small holdings and/or short timescales.

Although they pay out 1.4% of the total fund in prize money, this is skewed by the small number of disproportionately high prizes, so a more realistic expectation is closer to 90% of that, i.e. 1.26%, if you have average luck.

They're best suited to higher rate taxpayers who've used their personal savings allowance and can commit a large sum for a long time, or those who like a flutter, does this sound like you?

System

If you did buy 5000 premium bonds, and hung on to them for a few months you may win something …… probably £25! Or you may not. Or you may get a visit from "Agent Million". However, there's no interest on them and no guarantee of a win.

However, if you give them a trial for, say six months or a year, and don't get on with them, it's fairly straightforward to cash them in and you'd get your money back into your nominated account within two or three working days.

https://www.nsandi.com/premium-bonds

YorkshireBoy

frago wrote: »

Regular savers aren't good for my £5K as I will need really easy access to the money way before 12 months.

Choose them wisely and you can get penalty free access early should you need it.

New_York_No1_fan

https://mol.im/a/7376095

This may help with your decision. A bit of a read but sounds like you can rollover your bonus rate for another year.
Let us know it it works, my account bonus runs out in April.

eskbanker

New_York_No1_fan wrote: »

https://mol.im/a/7376095

This may help with your decision. A bit of a read but sounds like you can rollover your bonus rate for another year.
Let us know it it works, my account bonus runs out in April.

Without actually following a concealed link like that (especially if it's actually to the Daily Mail!), I suspect that it refers to what's been discussed extensively over the last couple of months on a dedicated thread on the savings board:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6029822/marcus-new-bonus-rate

Any bonus renewals since September 4th have just locked in the new lower 0.1% rate.

LobsterMemory

Going back to the original question, Marcus isn't really suitable as a current account and from later posts, that's not what's wanted anyway.

So, the Q now boils down to what is the best easy access account which I believe is the Al Rayan one at 1.61% at the moment