Atom Bank have increased the interest rate on its Instant Saver back to 0.50% wef 13 May 2021.
Previously, the offer to new customers was 0.37%, although existing customers, like myself, never saw our 0.50% rate drop during that 0.37% period.
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Yep - revived my Atom app and done the right thing 
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I’ll get Atom tagged…
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Time to move all the money I’d be splitting to Marcus whilst awaiting for the 0.37% to kick in for existing customers back over to Atom!
Indeed. £1000 for a year would earn you…£5. Even 20 grand would earn you 100 quid (8 and a bit quid a month). hardly worth completing the paperwork.
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I agree completely. Oh for the days of Egg when we were getting c. 6% iirc. R-
6% sounds high now, but it was hardly matching inflation at the time.
Getting any interest at all on savings over the past few months would have outstripped inflation, so a better rate wasn’t actually a real terms gain in the old days.
I do miss high interest current accounts from TSB, Lloyds and others. Virgin Money is as close as you can get to them now.
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Oh, and by the way, during the period that I’d let Atom sit dormant, they’ve made considerable strides with the app. Not breathtaking in competitive terms, but it certainly is compared to its former self.
And nice people as I recall.
Just applied for this account and seem to have failed the ID checks, despite answering all questions correctly, so they will have to do manual checks which may take a few days.
First time that has happened to me with a FinTech company.
I recently held a one-year “Regular Saver” account with the Principality, offering a whopping 1.5%. When it matured this month I discovered I’d earned a whole £22 for the year after putting in £250 per month.
I don’t think I’ll bother with cash for the time being. 
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These accounts look good until you workout how they operate.
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Really can’t see the point of investing in a vehicle with such a poor return. R-
Yes, they’re not ideal but it was for a specific purpose and it forced me to put money aside each month and to not touch it. Now it’s matured, that money has gone off to do its thing and everything else I don’t need immediately goes into the investment ISA.
I don’t think I’d hold more than a couple of grand in cash at the moment. Enough to move house if I need to, but that’s it.
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Sure. The real return is rarely writ large.
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I disagree. The real rate, which you get on all money actually on deposit, is the rate advertised.
Why people think they earn interest on money that’s not in the bank or building society, I’ll never know.
Would they calculate the interest on their personal loans in the same way?
Not a chance.
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Because it is simple.
The provider will not pay interest on money of your’s that they don’t have 
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You usually don’t have to. With a loan the interest is calculated up front, with a monthly payment that will account for both the principle and the interest. “Amount of loan” and “Balance to pay” are usually wildly different until the last few months of the term.
It’s a bit different with savings, because “regular saver” accounts are voluntary up to a limit (usually around £250).
I applied for (but never passed the ID checks) for a card called Blackcatcard. Had I done due diligence, I would have realised this was a Ukrainian Bank, run by Russians, domiciled in Malta, whose “customer service” was a guy in Germany’s WhatsApp account.
A better approximation would be
6.5 x (monthly amount) x AER
So, 12 monthly payments of ÂŁ250 at 1% will give you
6.5 x 250 x 0.01 = ÂŁ16.25
which is actually the figure that HSBC quote for their Regular Saver.
Works with my, now matured, 2.75% First Direct RS too.
Estimate ÂŁ53.62, actual ÂŁ53.43
And that could be down to a 1st being a Saturday, Sunday, or public holiday !