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For this week’s guide, Anna Bowes, savings expert from The Private Office, reviews the best offers on the savings market…

Easy access cash ISAs

This is the section of the market where we’ve seen the most activity over the past couple of weeks, and most of it is good.

At the top, Plum has been determined to stay well ahead of its competitors, raising its already market-leading account a couple of times, seemingly competing with itself.

It is now offering 4.98% – up from 4.92% a couple of weeks ago.

Marsden Building Society is a new addition, though with a restricted access account, paying 4.5% AER. 

For those who do not want to choose a financial app fintech provider or restricted access, the top rate is now 4.4% with Charter Savings Bank. 

This is a refreshingly straightforward account, as there are no restrictions on the number of withdrawals you can make and there is no short-term bonus to watch out for. 

It can be opened online with just £1 – you can transfer old ISAs in too!

Easy access

The best buy easy access market seems to have stalled, with very little change over the past couple of weeks.

The top rate on offer is still 5% AER – the Chase saver with boosted rate – it will fall to 2.75% after 12 months.

The underlying rate is variable, so if we see the base rate cut over the next few months, it could fall further.

To be eligible to open this account, you need to have opened or are prepared to open a current account with Chase since 9 June this year.

At 4.55%, Cahoot’s Simple Saver still offers the top straightforward, unrestricted easy access account without the need for a current account too. 

But note that after 12 months, any remaining funds in this account will be transferred to a Cahoot Savings Account, which currently pays only 1.2%.

The Family Building Society is a new addition to the table, which, in their own words, is a “no fuss” easy access account.

Take a look how that changes things up below…

Fixed-rate bonds

There have been a couple of decreases to new one-year launches, but the average among the top five has improved from 4.51% two weeks ago to 4.53% today.

The top one-year rate on offer is with GB Bank, hiking its offer for the second time in the same number of weeks to 4.58%.

Marcus (from Goldman Sachs) is another provider to keep competition alive in this table, as it has re-entered the top five after a lengthy absence.

It’s not quite such good news in the two-year table, with the top rate on offer, from Cynergy, falling slightly from 4.45% to 4.43%.

That said, GB Bank, which was the only provider to increase its offering, also launched a bond paying 4.43%. Let’s hope this rivalry continues.

The longer-term tables have seen very little activity, which would make sense given the Bank of England’s trajectory. 

The top three-year rate has fallen from 4.45% to 4.42%, with GB Bank pushing Cynergy from its top spot.

Although it has been a bit of a mixed bag, it’s generally positive news and it means that savers have plenty of inflation-beating options to choose from.

Fixed-rate cash ISAs

The positive activity we had been seeing in the fixed-rate ISA tables has slowed right down.

The top one-year rate is now a little lower than it was at 4.32% down from 4.36%.

Vanquis did launch a two-year ISA paying 4.26%, pipping its peers by just 0.01% to go into the top spot, but that was only available for a couple of days.

Once again there are still plenty of inflation-beating tax-free accounts to choose from for those who have not yet used this year’s ISA allowance or who are looking to switch from a poorer-paying ISA account.