The Motley Fool can reveal that 18 (yes, eighteen) providers are offering savings rates as low as 0.01%. This means some savers are still earning next to nothing on their savings despite the Bank of England raising its base rate last week.
While this may sound like bad news, use it as a call to action to check the interest rate on your cash. If it’s bad, move your money!
Right now, you can earn up to 0.75% in an easy access account or 2.2% in a fixed account. Here’s the lowdown.
Which providers are currently offering 0.01% savings rates?
According to data from Moneyfacts, these 18 providers currently offer savings rates as low as 0.01%:
- Ulster Bank
- Scottish Widows Bank
- Santander
- RBS
- NatWest
- Nationwide
- NS&I
- M&S Bank
- Lloyds Bank
- HSBC
- Halifax
- First Direct
- Danske Bank
- Coventry Building Society
- Citibank UK Limited
- Barclays Bank
- Bank of Scotland
- Allied Irish Bank (GB)
To put into context just how miserly 0.01% actually is, if you have your savings stashed into an account paying such a low interest rate, then you can expect to earn just £1 a year for every £10,000 saved.
To be fair to the providers above, not all of their savings accounts pay such a terrible rate, but some of their accounts do.
However, right now, there are savers out there earning just 0.01% interest on their cash.
How can you check your savings rate?
To check your savings rate, you can log into your online savings account. You’ll be able to do this as long as your provider supports online access to your accounts.
Once you’ve logged in, you should be able to see the interest rate applied to your savings.
If you can’t see the rate, or your account doesn’t give you online access, then you may wish to call your provider. Alternatively, you could even visit a branch if your provider has one in your area.
Even if your savings aren’t held with any of the 18 providers listed above, it’s still worth checking your rate. That’s because a lot of accounts pay similarly low savings rates. For example, many accounts offer savers just 0.05% or 0.1%. While these rates aren’t quite as bad as 0.01%, they’re still far below rates available elsewhere.
What savings rates are available right now?
If you’re currently earning a poor interest rate or you simply want to earn the highest savings rate available, it’s probably worth moving your money.
Right now, the top easy access deal pays 0.75% AER variable interest, via Aldermore. So, open this account and you’ll earn 75 times more interest than the worst accounts paying just 0.01%.
However, before you consider this account, bear in mind that you can only make two penalty-free withdrawals a year from it. Make more than this and your rate drops to 0.1%.
If you want greater flexibility to access your cash, consider Cynergy Bank’s account instead. This account pays a slightly lower 0.71% AER variable (including a fixed 0.41% bonus for 12 months) but you can make as many withdrawals as you like from the account.
For more options, take a look at our list of top-rated easy access savings accounts.
Can you get an even higher interest rate on your cash?
If you’re looking to beat easy access rates, then take a look at our list of top-rated fixed savings accounts instead. Right now you can earn up to 2.2% AER fixed, but only if you’re happy to lock away your cash for five years.
One-year fixes, on the other hand, offer more flexibility, and you can currently earn yourself 1.41% AER interest with your money locked away in a 12-month term.
If you’d rather save every month, then also take a look at our list of top-rated regular savings accounts. The top deal pays a massive 5%, though many of the higher paying accounts require you to already be a customer of a particular bank. That said, a few open-to-all regular savings accounts offer savings rates above 1%, which isn’t too shabby.
For more details, plus other options, take a look at The Motley Fool’s top-rated savings accounts of 2022.
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About the author
Karl is a writer specialising in investing and personal finance content. He regularly contributes articles on savings, bank accounts, mortgages, and loans. He was previously a Personal Finance Writer for MoneySavingExpert.
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