NS&I Pushes Savings Bonds Above 5% for the First Time in Years
National Savings and Investments has raised its British savings bonds to 4.99% for one year, 5.07% for two, 5.10% for three and 5.17% for five — most above 5% for the first time in nearly three years. The minimum is £500, the maximum £1m a person per issue, and there is no early withdrawal.
The case for taking it is not the rate, because better rates exist. Sarah Coles of AJ Bell puts it directly: “you can still make more money elsewhere” — the best one-year fixed bond pays 5.12% and the best five-year 5.37%. The case is security at scale. NS&I says most banks guarantee savings only up to £120,000 and that it is “the only provider that secures 100% of your savings above this amount”, being Treasury-backed; that framing is NS&I’s own and worth checking against the compensation scheme’s published limit before acting on it. The warning attached is about timing rather than value. Rachel Springall of Moneyfactscompare notes that attractive deals “do not always hang around for long”, because once a provider has drawn in enough money it pulls the product. Elsewhere, Starling pays 5% on its Easy Saver with unlimited penalty-free withdrawals on balances to £25,000, but only for current-account customers who joined on or after 1 October — earlier customers get 4% — and Marcus by Goldman Sachs moved its one-year fix from 4.3% to 4.75% this week. All of it is the same story told from the saver’s side: the gilt yields that have made this week uncomfortable for the chancellor are what is paying for these rates.