Two Ways to Gain Higher Interest on Your Current Account

It’s a simple fact that many people miss out on the best deals with current accounts. People often stick with the same account brand from when they were younger for a very long time, and many stay quite ignorant of exactly what the best deal for them actually is. It’s especially easy for graduates to stay with the same account from before their studies, especially when it continues to supply an interest free overdraft facility. However, you may well benefit highly if you do a bit of scouting for a better deal, and you might even be able to say goodbye to that overdraft.

There’s currently a massive amount of current accounts available from the high street banks on the UK market. Comparison tables for current accounts from the Motley Fool website show just a few of the accounts currently on offer, but they do have some of the top ones listed.

The battle for the best interest rates on current accounts is being fought particularly hard by Alliance and Leicester and Abbey. The latter have recently pushed a quite eye catching marketing campaign featuring none other than the man of the moment – Lewis Hamilton. Their current account offers a healthy rate of 8%, which sounds great, and certainly has some excellent benefits if you play your cards right. If you transfer to Abbey using the account transfer service, and credit the account with £1,000 per month then you will receive the 8% rate on balances of up to £2,500 for the first twelve months. It’s a pretty good deal, but getting the maximum amount of interest is pretty difficult to pull off.

A good alternative to Abbey’s account is Alliance and Leicester’s Premier Current Account. With this account linked to a Premier Regular Saver, you could be earning a very impressive 12% interest annually. If you can pay at least £500 into your current account per month then you will be eligible to apply – you’ll also get free annual travel insurance for no extra cost. You’ll earn only 1.50% AER on balances up to £2,500 with the current account, but if you can put a further fixed amount of between £10 and £250 per month into the saver that comes with the Premier Current Account, then you will get the top rate. Certainly this is more a more complicated way to gain interest, but that an extra 4% is could definitely be a worthwhile bonus.