THE NATIONAL TREASURY Management Agency (NTMA) has today announced new issues of fixed rate State Savings products and changes to the interest rates on its variable rate products.

The new issues of the NTMA’s fixed rate products include:

• 3-year Savings Bond (Issue 14) offering a 4 per cent fixed-rate total return (AER 1.32 per cent)
• 4-year National Solidarity Bond (Issue 3) offering an 8 per cent fixed-rate total return (AER 1.94 per cent)
• 5-year Savings Certificate (Issue 19) offering an 11 per cent fixed-rate total return (AER 2.11 per cent)
• 6-year Instalment Savings (Issue 11) offering a 14 per cent fixed-rate total return (AER 2.41 per cent)
• 10-year National Solidarity Bond (Issue 3) offering a 35 per cent fixed-rate total return (AER 3.05 per cent)

The NTMA announced changes to variable rate products, which will have an affect on all existing Prize Bonds as well as the 30-day notice Deposit Account Plus.

The rate reductions will only affect new purchases made from today and will have no affect on the existing holders of Savings Bonds, Saving Certificates, Instalment Savings or National Solidarity Bonds – all of which have fixed interest rates.

Changes

The top prize structure for Prize Bonds is changing, with the previous €1 million prize offered each month being scrapped in favour of a €1 million prize in the last weekly draw of each second month, ie February, April, June, August, October and December. The Prize Bonds fund rate will be changed to 1.75 per cent from today.

Meanwhile, the variable interest rate on the 30-day notice Deposit Account Plus is also being altered, and will now pay a variable rate of 0.5 per cent AER subject to the prevailing rate of Deposit Interest Retention Tax (DIRT) (currently 33 per cent).

There will be no change to the Ordinary Deposit Account.

“The new rates reflect the reductions in interest rates in the savings market and in Sovereign bond yields generally,” an NTMA spokesperson said today.

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