The 7% savings accounts that can earn you hundreds of pounds in interest

Interest rates might well be cut once more before the end of the year, with the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee meeting once more before January.

With inflation no longer increasing and productivity, growth and jobs all back on the agenda, the committee may be inclined to vote for a move down to 3.75 per cent.

It means savers have to keep ensuring they put their cash where the best returns are – and luckily, we’ve rounded up a list of the best cash ISAs, easy access accounts and fixed-term savers, all of which offer more than 4 per cent interest to ensure your money is growing at a faster rate than inflation.

But there is one additional type of account where you can earn a lot more: regular saver accounts. These are designed to encourage saving habits by making monthly payments and getting a better interest rate in turn.

Here are the ones still offering you at least 7 per cent on your money – but note each have their own requirements, limits and use cases, so make sure any you choose are right for your circumstances and needs.

Offering a whopping 7.5 per cent AER, this is a six-month regular saver which gives people the chance to save up to £200 per month – so up to £1,200 in total across the period.

You can’t withdraw money until the end of the six months and the full interest amount is paid out at the end of the term.

It would earn you around £25 interest across that period if you maxed out the saving limit at the start of each month.

If that doesn’t sound like much in isolation, consider that it’s time and compounding which adds up to really supercharge your savings and seeking out great rates is the start of that. At the end you’ll have £1,225 or so which can seriously boost your main savings account – allowing you to start over with a new regular saver, massively improving your overall financial resilience in the process.

More details on Principality’s deal here.

Among the banks, challenger Zopa provides the best rate on a regular saver – it’s 7.1 per cent AER.

There are a few slight differences to the Principality one: the maximum you can save per month is £300, and the interest is paid into the savings account monthly.

It lasts for 12 months too, not six, but perhaps the most notable difference is that Zopa allow easy access to the regular saver account in case you need the cash on short notice.

Across the course of a year and maxing out allowances as early as possible you can earn about £137 in interest – so you’d have about £3,737 in the account all told.

You need to open a Zopa Biscuit account (their normal current account) to access the regular saver.

Very similar in style to Zopa’s, first direct offer 7.0 per cent AER, fixed for 12 months in their regular saver.

You can add between £25 and £300 a month, with again the idea being to encourage consistent saving habits – but there’s nothing wrong with using these high interest regular saver accounts as a boost to some of your funds if you already save regularly!

Adding the maximum each month would yield about £136 over the year, so £3,736 in total by the end of the year. You set up a standing order for the monthly payments, so you choose the amount you want to save monthly right at the beginning – additional amounts can’t be added later.

Money can only be accessed and withdrawn at the end of the 12 months for the higher rate – if you close it early you get a much lower standard rate.

As is usually the case, for the first direct saver account you need the current account first (called 1st account).

Finally, Co-operative Bank lines up very similar to the first direct option, but there’s a £250 maximum monthly pay-in and one key difference: the 7.0 per cent AER interest rate is a variable rate, which means Co-op Bank could alter it – they must give two months’ notice before doing so.

Interest is paid at the end of the term, and if you max out monthly you’d have about £3,114 at the end, with £114 of that being interest payments. You can withdraw money if you need to but you can’t replace it afterwards.

Again, you need a Co-operative Bank current account to access their regular saver.

AER means annual equivalent rate and is used so you can easily compare accounts which may have different timeframes or pay interest at different frequencies. It’s the essential rate you’d get if interest was compounded and paid once annually.