Savings News

National Savings and Investments (NS&I) has announced plans to phase out its paper prize cheques to Premium Bond winners from December 2020 in a move that will eventually see all prize payments made directly into winner’s bank accounts.

The phasing out of paper prize cheques will last until March 2021and according to NS&I, this switch will result in “a quicker, easier and more secure way for customers to receive prizes”.
Since 2011, Premium Bond customers could choose to have prizes paid directly into their bank accounts and in the September 2020 draw 74% of winners had their prizes paid into their accounts rather than opting for a postal cheque.

ISA savers looking for a short-term fixed rate ISA will be pleased to see new higher rates topping the one and two year fixed rate ISA charts this week. In addition to this, competition towards the top of the easy access ISA chart has improved this week, with more providers offering the third top rate of 0.90%.

It should be noted that the rates below are the best rates available at 12pm on Thursday 17 September 2020 and, although correct at the time of publishing, they may not be available after this time.

With rates as high as 3.00%, children’s savings accounts offer some of the most competitive savings rates in the charts. This, combined with the increase in the Junior ISA limit to £9,000 during the 2020/21 tax year, has made saving for a child’s future using a children’s savings account or JISA highly attractive for parents and grandparents – but are they always the right option?

Below we’ve looked at different life stages for a child and looked at some of the best savings options available at that time.

The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures show that during August inflation fell to a five-year low of 0.2%, which will be welcome news to many savers especially as savings rates are starting to rise.

August’s fall in inflation came after July saw inflation rise to 1.0%, which has resulted in a 0.8% fall between July and August. As a result of this fall 661 savings accounts can now beat inflation, an increase from the 91 accounts that could beat July’s inflation rate of 1.0%.
Of the accounts that can beat August’s inflation rate of 0.2%, 80 are easy access accounts, 72 are notice accounts, 77 are variable rate ISAs, 131 are fixed rate ISAs, and 301 are fixed rate bonds.

Although savers will be pleased at the significant increase in number of savings accounts that can now beat inflation, those considering a long-term fixed account should keep in mind that the predicted rate of inflation for July to September 2023 is 2.2% and there are no accounts that currently beat this rate.