NS&I and Marcus Bank cut rates - what's the point of saving?

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2020

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, savings have been in the spotlight with National Savings and Investments cutting rates on a number of its offerings, including popular Premium Bonds.

Both Marcus Bank and Saga also cut easy-access rates.

On this week's podcast, Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost look at what's behind the cuts and question: should savers head elsewhere, and what is the point of tucking money away for little interest?

Nationwide Building Society has launched a Start to Save easy-access account with a £100 lottery – is it any good and can it help get people into the savings habit?

We cover a curious case of one reader who found their Spotify infiltrated by someone with appalling music taste.

Simon reveals how he was stung by the loyalty penalty when a renewal letter came through from his insurer Halifax.

It hiked his premium, but after weeks of back-and-forth, couldn't give him a concrete reason as to why.

And Lee looks at whether a Fitbit is worth the money and how a fitness tracker helped his mum, with an underlying health condition, become healthier.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This Is Money's podcast is brought to you in partnership with the financial services compensation scheme.
0:04.9	Check your financial products at FSCS protected at fscs.org.uk forward slash This Is Money.
0:11.4	Welcome to This Is Money. I'm Georgie Frost and alongside me and editor Simon Lambert today is assistant editor Lee Boyce.
0:18.2	And just what is the point in saving? NS&I wield the axe this week,
0:24.2	followed by Marcus and Saga. But where can save us go now? Well, how about nationwide? It's got a new
0:30.5	lottery-style product paying 1% interest, but is it any good? Also, digital hacks and whose responsibility is it anyway, Simon
0:40.4	gets clobbered for being loyal, and Lee gets his running shoes on. And don't forget you
0:45.0	to stay up to date with all the latest breaking money news. Just go to this ismoney.com.uk.
0:50.2	Or download the app, but first. What a horrid week for Savers.
0:55.2	First came NS9, making it even more difficult to win on their extremely popular premium bonds
1:01.4	and therefore taking the effective rate of interest from 1.4% to 1.3%,
1:07.1	which seems to be the not-so-magic number this week, actually, is two days later. Saga and Marcus, oh, the saviour of savers, and cut their rates from 1.35% to 1.3.
1:20.0	Marcus only launched in September 2018, 1.5% it was, with a 0.15% bonus. Oh, the heady times I even got one.
1:31.5	So where do Savers turn now? We've already discussed that high profile interest paying current accounts, Santander 1,23 and TSB's Classic Plus are cutting their rates in May.
1:41.7	So, Lee, firstly, let's go to NS9. And every time I think about NS9, I think about your
1:45.8	little story that you had about how Americans just love the idea of premium bonds. Unique
1:51.7	situation though with them as opposed to other banks cutting their rates because, well, explain
1:56.6	to us. Why? Well, exactly, Georgia. Yeah. So, as we have previously mentioned on podcast past,
2:02.0	Americans on that Reddit thread a long time ago couldn't believe that a product like premium
2:07.5	bonds exist. And it seems like Britain's kind of feel the same way. You know, more than 20 million
2:13.2	people have premium bonds, which is quite an outstanding number. And for NSNI products in a
2:19.3	whole, there's 25 million people that have NS&I savings products, whether that be premium bonds
	...

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