If you happen to have a minimum of £30,000 sloshing around earning a pitiful interest rate in th bank, then a new service might find you a better return.
MaxBips.com is an “auction powered, real-time market place for term deposits”, where depositors specify how much they want to put away, how long for (between 30 days and 2 years) and then banks bid for your deposit. The rates you will receive are a mix of live, bespoke bids and published high street rates, and you can get a quick idea of the rates you could get using their free rate indicator on their homepage. There’s more about the bidding process here.
For example, I’ve just done a quote for £30,000 over 1 year, and 11 banks quoted, coming in between just 0.02% to a somewhat better 3.70%.
All the quotes you get for your deposits are no-obligation, and any deals are done through the banks themselves, which are all FSA protected banks. MaxBips.com make their money from an annual subscription charge which is currently £49 (+VAT).
I love the idea of this tool – it feels like it’s giving some control back to the consumer rather than leaving it in the hands of the banks, but with a minimum deposit of £30,000, this is obviously more suited to those with plenty in the bank.
For those with less spare cash, Zopa might be worth a look instead. It’s a slightly different model and the risks of losing your money are possibly greater (because you’re lending to people, instead of banks, although these days who knows where the bigger risk lies?), but it does allow you to play a slightly different role to the normal customer – bank relationship, which may be what you’re looking for.
photo credit: a.drian