Savings Champion

Anna Bowes is a regular contributor to the BBC’s Money Box, Breakfast and News programs, as well as the national press, providing expert analysis and commentary on the UK savings market. Anna has worked in the financial services industry for more than 20 years and for most of that time has been helping people to make the most of their savings.

This week, we received the good news that RCI Bank received its UK banking licence.

🔖 Read: RCI Bank announces its new banking licence to see how this affects savers – both new and existing.

One of the good features about RCI Bank’s easy access account is the fact that the interest rate advertised applies to all account holders, not just new ones.

Our Ask Anna this week tackles the question about how to check if you are earning the rate that your provider is currently advertising.

🔖 Read: Ask Anna – watch out for the 'issues'

This week we asked our partner Responsible Equity Release to rustle up a short quiz, to test us all on just how much we know about equity release.

We’ll be bringing you some more quizzes going forward to check that your savings knowledge is also up to scratch.

✔️ Take the Equity Release Myth Buster Quiz now

Raisin UK has ended the week with a bang, launching exclusive three year* and five year* market-leading fixed rate bonds with AgriBank – a Maltese bank established in 2012.

As a result, the top five year rate available has pushed through the 3% barrier for the first time in three years.

But it should be noted that this provider is not part of the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). Instead deposits of up to €100,000 are protected by the Maltese Depositor Compensation Scheme.

🔖 Read: This week's Rates Rundown, for more on these and other market-leading accounts.

It’s been a turbulent week with the ongoing Brexit debacle, so moneycorp’s Economic Overview reviews how this and the Spring Statement have affected sterling this week.

🔖 Read: Pound fluctuates as key votes on Brexit occur.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for all your cash ISA questions that we’ve had in response to our ISA special last week.

Keep them coming and we’ll publish more of them as the end of the tax year approaches.

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Articles featured in this edition