The Bank of England cut interest rates towards the end of last year, leaving questions regarding whether high street banks and building societies will follow suit.
For people seeking savings advice in Cheshire or Oswestry, financial analysts recommend shopping around but moving fast to secure the best deals before they vanish.
If you find yourself in this position, there are different factors to consider. With inflation nudging up in December, there are unlikely to be further interest rate cuts any time soon. Inflation, of course, is a double-edged sword: negative in so far as it erodes the value of your savings but, equally, it means that the top savings rate deals are less likely to be withdrawn.
In spite of the recent cut to interest rate, many easy-access account or fixed-rate bond rates have held up longer than expected. There are currently over 1,400 savings accounts offering inflation-beating rates, of which about half are fixed-rate bonds. These are designed to allow savers to ‘lock’ their accounts at current rates before they drop.
January is a good time of year to establish new financial targets for the year ahead. It may be worth savers looking to see if they can clinch any deal offering a one-year, fixed-rate savings bond offering up to 4.35% or an easy-access account at 4.5%. To protect yourself from future rate cuts, you might instead opt for a two-year deal, and if you move fast enough, you may still be able to land a 24-month bond offering over 4.1%.
