high interest saving accounts

Internationally interest rates are low, even in a historical view. I imagine there are places where you can get higher rates, but that is with real currency and capital risks.

The highest interest rates you can expect are in the order of 3%, the rate at which banks can borrow from other banks..

If you can use an address in the UK, practially all banks offer savings accounts that pay 5%. I have one with Cahoot.com that calculates interest daily and pays it monthly. Brill!

Try putting your cash into Prize Bonds! Nett return 2.4% p.a.. This equates to Northern Rock's annual rate of 3% because you pay dirt at 20% on the 3%.
Also zero risk involved - Don't forget most of these banks are in hock to the overpriced property market and are heavily exposed to a downturn!


Never know you might get really lucky ! And anyway you can withdraw your cash anytime you like unlike with some of our bank friends!

Anyone know and cheap hookers, I want to be screwed over.

All true what you say ! You do run the risk of winning a large prize or nothing - nevertheless the return over a period is mathematically 2.4% without tax.

If you invest €100k over a period say 10 years you will earn €24k in prizes. And zero risk !

*** WARNING ***

There is a lot of kooky advice going around here. If you are sufficiently naive about financial matters to be depending on boards.ie for guidance, well, I'd leave granny's money in the matress for now if I were you. There are exceptions, but a lot of the advice on this thread is absolute rubbish.

But you won't be beating the bank. You'd be using the interest on your account (which is guarenteed) to bet against other people. So basically you bet on sterling falling on the exchange. Then your money in your account accrues interest in sterling. Should sterling rise then fantastic your account is worth more, and you lose on the bet. Should sterling fall, you win on the exchange cancelling out the loss.

Sure you won't get 5% on the total like one of the posters said, but I'm sure you can do the calculations so that you could get 3% or so.

Have you made much money doing this yourself? You must be good mates with the boys on the AIB treasury desk and/or doing regular (weekly) transactions in the 5 million-euro range as otherwise you would be unlikely to get an exchange rate that would make this remotely viable. You must have the luck of the Irish too, because even a small swing in the value of sterling (0.005 cents in a day, which is pretty commonplace in currency trading)) would turn your interest rate gain into a loss. You must have a generous and understanding banker, because any transaction fee would cut into it pretty badly too.

It's amazing that the institutions haven't priced these factors into the currency already, and are happy to stand by and allow you to benefit from an interest rate some 50 percent higher than the rate they have to overnight their spare euro billions at. The institutions have a lot of really brainy people working for them staring at screens and writing on whiteboards all day working this stuff out. They would be better off lending you some of their dosh in return for a split of the profits from your foolproof moneymaking scheme!

Reyman says:

Don't forget most of these banks are in hock to the overpriced property market and are heavily exposed to a downturn!

Are you suggesting that Irish banks are in danger of not being able to pay their account holders back their money if property prices drop?

Can you explain your justification for this statement? Can you provide us with a single indicator to back it up? What degree of correction in property values would be required to bring this about, according to your research?

When you wrote to IFSRA to bring this important information to their attention, what did they say in responce? Did they quote a file or reference number? I hope the public has not been the victim of a cover-up.

The return, even the 'mathematical' return on prize bonds is a good bit less than 2.4 percent, because the punters do not benefit from the compounding of the return on their investment.

I believe round 50 % of Bank of Ireland's loan book is now in property.

what does that have to do with it? What shift would it take to bring Bank of Ireland's mortgage book into negative equity? The book is quite mature, so I'd say would need a 50 percent or so drop to get into negative equity.

If they did get into negative equity, what difference would it make? Most people would still make their payments.

Why are you worried about the 50 percent that is in property? Why aren't you worried about the 50 percent that's secured against old PCs,unsaleable office furniture and other basically valueless assets?

Have a look at the current issue of Business and Finance if you think property is a good investment.

We weren't talking about property being a good investment. We were talking about a bank, the Bank of Ireland, which you believe is at risk of collapse.

The stock market was also regulated when it did its nice about turn 3-4 years ago

What exactly does that have to do with anything we were discussing?

As with normal interest the return is compound if you reinvest the prize money (interest) you've received

Have you calculated it? I think you'll find it's less, a lot less, for 99 percent of bondholders.

Zaph0d wrote:

If you buy prize bonds with €5K, your probable winnings are as follows:

.

Thanks for that, Zaph0d. I have a grand in prizebonds and have had them for nearly 3 years and haven't won a single prize! I'd been considering cashing them in, now I definitely will.