Easy access best buys hit 1.20%

19/04/2022

Easy access rates have reached two year highs as rates continue to head upwards and, importantly, with more providers increasing their rates.  We are now at levels last seen prior to the announcement of the cancellation of cuts which were due to take place on NS&I's product range in May 2020 as the government reacted to covid sweeping the UK.   

The past week has seen Atom join the 1% club, as it increased its Instant Saver rate from 0.90% to 1%, Cynergy* added 0.10% to the bonus rate on its Online Easy Access Account and Zopa upped the rate on its Smart Saver today from 1.15% to a joint best buy of 1.20%.  This makes it seven providers all paying the magic 1% or more with Marcus (1%), Saga (1%), Al Rayan (1.01%) and Tandem (1.10%) also there.

There's also two current account linked savings accounts in this club - Virgin Money's M Saver and JP Morgan's digital offshoot bank, Chase, pay 1% and 1.50% respectively on easy access but their accounts both require savers to have a current account with them to access those rates, albeit neither require customers to switch their current to access those offers - making it nine providers at 1% or more.

It's hard to believe that Aldermore topped the easy access tables with its Double Access Saver paying 0.95% as recently as 25th March!  It will be no surprise should we see the likes of Aldermore, Investec, Shawbrook etc join this group in the near future.  With some large savings providers already there, who can sustain strong inflows, it's hard to see any reasons why there could be a fall back in rates.  Instead, we expect to see movements above these levels with providers looking to close the gap on that Chase rate, which is clearly attracting plenty of interest.

All that is good news for savers after a torrid time which saw easy access best buys collapse to as low as 0.40%.

* Cynergy isn't included in our tables because of the high bonus element paid on it's account - 0.90% of the 1.20% rate is a bonus.