Current Account paying good interest?

C

chidibo

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I see Alliance and Leicester are paying 6.1% interest on current account balances in the UK. Is there any bank paying a decent rate of interest on current account balances in Ireland?
 
See the Best Buys forum for a summary of Irish rates.

Note that there are very good reasons why UK banks pay higher interest. If you search/browse you will see the topic has been discussed before.
 
I think the Financial Best Buys only covers deposit accounts. I'm not aware of many (any?) current accounts that offer anything other that marginal interest returns in Ireland but I may just be ill informed on this. On the other hand it's not too difficult to operate a high yielding deposit account and a current account and shift money between the two electronically and online in many cases when necessary.
 
I had a look around and as predicted rates are pretty bad, and those that are slightly better come with a price. Here are the interest paying current accounts that I could find. Rates are Gross/CAR.

*********************
National Irish Bank

Prestige
2.25%
€31.25 fee per quarter

Easy Plus
1.50%
€18.75 fee per quarter

*********************

AIB

Personal Current Account*
0.5% €0 - €1000

Student Plus Account*
0.025%

Junior Saver / Student Account
1.25% €0 - €999
1.4% €1000 - €63,399
1.5% €63,400 - €126,899
1.675% / 1.685% €126,900+

*Interest paid quarterly to customers who use AIB's phone or internet banking services at least once during the relevant interest quarter.

*********************
Ulster Bank

uFirst
0.5%
€9 fee per month

Dual Accout
0.01% €0 - €29,999
0.05% €30,000 - €124,999
0.25% €125,000 +

*********************

If there are any I missed please let me know. If you work in a bank please pay more interest to your current account customers.
 
on a related note, is there anywhere where you can compare all the fees on current accounts?
Annual fees, ATM fees etc?
 
You will find a survey of current accounts on the Financial Regulator's website.
 
Interesting. Lately AIB have become far more competitive on many fronts -- savings accounts, mortgages, credit cards, free current account banking (for how long though?!) and now this, coupled with one of the best online banking systems. I wonder if they are feeling the pinch from new market entrants?
 
I'm fairly sure AIB had free current account banking (with certain terms and conditions) a few years ago and removed it, then reintroduced it to incentivise people to use Laser and online banking. I assume it's something they'll revisit periodically, as they have in the past.

Slightly more info on the new AIB current account at their [broken link removed] site.
The new account, which will be available from 5th March, will pay 4% A.E.R. on balances up to €1,500 to customers with monthly lodgements of €1,500 or more...they can avail of it without incurring additional fixed monthly or quarterly fees.
Click to expand...
 
I presume so and would imagine that the €1.5K monthly lodgement limit is aimed at precisely that - i.e. getting people to have their salary lodged.
 
I wonder will it be only on personal a/c's or will it be on business a/c's?
 
ClubMan said:
I presume so and would imagine that the €1.5K monthly lodgement limit is aimed at precisely that - i.e. getting people to have their salary lodged.
Click to expand...

According to AIB's [broken link removed] you will need to lodge at least €1500 per month to get the 4%
 
demoivre said:
According to AIB's [broken link removed] you will need to lodge at least €1500 per month to get the 4%
Click to expand...

This doesn't seem a particularly onerous condition to me?

On the surface it seems like a very positive move.
 
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