One-year fixed rate bonds breached 6% AER last week, finally giving savers decent interest on cash after years of paltry returns.

However, as the market is moving at pace, with providers re-pricing deals weekly, daily, and sometimes more than once a day, savers may feel short-changed if they’ve locked in a deal which has fallen off the best buy tables.

As an example, just last month on 6 June, SmartSave offered 5.26% AER on its one-year bond. But just three weeks later, the same deal paid 5.86% AER. Today savers locking into the one-year deal can net a market-leading 6.01% AER, a 75-basis point difference over the course of the month.

But is there anything you can do?

James Blower, founder of The Savings Guru says whether savers can access these fixed rates will depend on what the terms and conditions of the provider say.

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“There are very few banks that offer a cooling off period, as these are not a regulatory requirement on savings products (only on ISAs), so the likelihood is that if a saver has opened and funded one of these accounts then there will be little they can do,” he says.

Anna Bowes, co-founder of Savings Champion adds that none of the current market-leading one-year bonds – SmartSave, Shawbrook, Cynergy Bank, HTB, Atom Bank – allow early access at all. “It’s only ISAs that must allow access, albeit with a penalty”, she says.

Looking at the T&Cs of SmartSave, it states that only in ‘exceptional circumstances’ it may consider early withdrawals, “but we’re not obliged to”. This includes bankruptcy, insolvency and diagnosis of a critical illness.

A SmartSave spokesperson, says: “Interest rates can go up or down, and changes are to be expected during periods of economic unrest. By enabling consumers to lock in a specific rate of interest, fixed-rate fixed-term accounts provide certainty and protection from changes in market conditions.

“Ultimately it’s the consumer’s choice to lock in at a particular rate of interest, based on their own assessment of potential future rate changes, but we also provide our customers with the peace of mind that should something unexpected happen, like bankruptcy or illness, that they can withdraw their funds early without penalty.”

‘Appeal to their better nature’

Blower adds there’s no reason why savers can’t ask to be moved to a higher paying deal offered by their provider.

“It’s a case of appealing to their better nature, rather than a right”, he adds.

If in the rare circumstance you can move your money, then make sure you won’t lose out on interest.

Bowes offers this calculation to help you work out whether a move could be worthwhile, though note it’s only based on cash sitting in a zero-interest earning current account:

• If you deposited £10,000 (SmartSave’s minimum deposit amount) in the 5.26% account you would earn £526 in the year
• If you left the money in a current account earning nothing for 22 days, you’d miss out on £31.70 (£526/365 days x 22 days)
• If you take that off the total, you’d earn on a higher paying bond 22 days later as £10,000 deposited at 5.86% = £586 minus £31.70 = £554.30 (5.54%) which is still higher though.

But Bowes warns that the real problem with waiting is that you might miss the top and then you’d have lost the interest while waiting and still end up with a similar rate.

She said: “You probably need a mindset that accepts that there may be better rates (although there may not) but what you can be sure of is that you are earning more than double what you could have just a year ago. On 28 June 2022, the top rate was with Kent Reliance paying 2.61%.”