🔔 Best buy fixed rate battle takes a breather

The battle of the best buy fixed rate bonds and ISAs seems to have had a ceasefire recently, with a number of the market-leading accounts being withdrawn.

Today has seen another market-leading fixed rate account tumble from the top of the best buy tables.

This time it’s the OakNorth Bank's 12 Months Fixed Rate cash ISA, which was paying 1.75% tax free/AER. The rate was only available for four days. The new leader is Shawbrook Bank, which is offering a marginally lower rate of 1.74% tax free/AER and the next best is Cynergy Bank paying 1.73% tax free/AER* - so there are still good options for those who still need to use their ISA allowance for the current tax year.

OakNorth Bank’s new version is paying 1.68% tax free/AER – which means that it moves down from first to third position in our best buy table.

But it’s not just fixed rate cash ISAs that have seen a slowdown in competition for the top spot.

Just two weeks ago, the best one year fixed rate bond was paying 2.10% (Aldermore), which was available for just five days. Currently OakNorth Bank is in the top spot, but paying just 2.01%.

At the begining of the week, Investec Bank reduced the rate on its joint market-leading 3 Year Fixed Term Deposit, which was paying 2.40% gross/AER. The new version is paying just 2.20% gross/AER, so no longer features in our top five.

The new top of the three year pops is Aldermore's 3 Year Fixed Rate Account – which retains the market leading rate of 2.40% gross/AER*. In fact three other providers also offer this rate - ICICI Bank (via the Raisin UK platform)*, Masthaven and Tandem.

Other victims of their own success include Ford Money and Atom Bank, which both had a best buy one year fixed rate bond in the top five, paying 2% gross/AER. Both have now been withdrawn.

Following a sustained battle which had realised a two and half year high on some best buy fixed rates and saw some of the market-leading rates available for a matter of days, there seems to have been a real slowdown – and in fact the very best rates are no longer as high as they were.

It goes to show that if you see a rate that looks good, it’s important to grab it while you can, as we can never know when the market might have peaked.

And all the time you are waiting for a better rate to appear, you’re missing out on the higher interest you could have been earning by acting sooner.

Take a look at our independent best buy tables or call us on 0800 011 9705 for help finding the most suitable accounts for you.

*We are occasionally paid by some providers if you click through from our Best Buy Tables and open a savings or current account with them. We will never accept a payment that compromises in any way our independent, whole of market approach to providing information on savings products. For clarity we will indicate those companies who remunerate us with an asterisk (*).

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