Regular saving accounts are offering interest rates of up to 12%, comfortably beating the best fixed and instant access accounts.
But as a general rule in saving, the higher the rate of interest on offer, the more hoops you’ll have to jump through to get it, so be prepared for a fair whack of fine print accompanying regular savers.
The two main things you’ll need to do with any such account is deposit a set amount each month and not touch the money for a year. Fail at either of these and you’ll see your interest rate plummet. Here we take a look at the best paying accounts, and what you need to do to get them.
Compare regular saving accounts hereThe top paying accountsAlliance & Leicester offers of truly remarkable 12% on its Premier Regular Saver, while you can get 10% with
HSBC’s Regular Saver and 8% with
Lloyds TSB’s Monthly Saver. These three are the highest paying of all the saving accounts on the market.
Like any other account, they expire after 12 months and carry strict limits on the amount you can invest every month, with a minimum of £10 - £25, and a maximum of £250. Similarly, the fact you are dumped into a lower paying account after one year is fairly standard, too.
But the one restriction that is unique to these accounts is that you have to open/own a current account with the provider to get the special rate. Switching your main account in order to get a higher saving rate is quite a hassle, so it all comes down to how badly you want that juicy headline rate (bearing in mind that you can only earn interest on a maximum of £3,000 a year in any of them).
Compare regular saving accounts here | Minimum Deposit | Maximum Deposit | Interest Rate |
| Alliance & Leicester | £10 | £250 | 12% |
| HSBC | £25 | £250 | 10% |
| Lloyds TSB | £25 | £250 | 8% |
Top accounts that are available to everyoneIf you aren’t a member of one of the aforementioned banks and are unwilling to switch, then your next best bet is the
Skipton Special Saver, with offers a 7.55% rate. It requires a minimum deposit of £10 and a maximum of £250, but interestingly Skipton says customers are allowed to run up to three accounts at the same time.
You may have thought allowing customers to open one account with a £750 monthly limit would have made more sense (and been easier to mange for both parties), but as we mentioned at the start, higher rate = more hoops to jump through.
Other attractive accounts that are open to everyone are the
Abbey Monthly Saver (7.25%) and the
Halifax Regular Saver (7%).
Whereas most other banks will simply dump your money into your current account or a low paying alternative saving account, a nice advantage of the Halifax option is that customers can choose which account their savings are transferred to after the 12 month period (the
Websaver is your best bet, offering a 5.5% rate).
Compare regular saving accounts hereNeed more flexibility in your savings?If you want a regular saver that gives you a bit more flexibility, you are going to have to sacrifice some of the headline rate.
Yorkshire Building Society allows you to save between £10 and £500 a month with its Regular Saver, and you only need to put money away in 11 of the 12 months. Unfortunately, the 6.85% rate isn’t that great.
Can’t beat the Regular Saver rateIf you are desperate to save and can definitely set money aside every month without fail, regular saving accounts are the most profitable option.
As an example, if you saved the maximum £250 a month with Alliance & Leicester’s Premier Regular Saver, you would earn £170 interest after one year. If you set aside the same amount in the best paying
instant access account – ICICI’s
Hi Save – you would accrue just £89 interest, or just over half as much.
With such attractive rates on offer, suddenly jumping through a few hoops doesn’t seem like such a big problem.
Compare regular saving accounts here
