Government-backed National Savings & Investments (NS&I) have announced that its pulled Index-Linked Savings Certificates, as well as its Fixed Rate Savings Certificates.
Jane Platt, Chief Executive, NS&I, said: “During the almost four months that Savings Certificates have been [back] on sale, there have been approaching 500,000 transactions into the latest Issue of Index-linked Savings Certificates.
“Over this period, we’ve seen significant amounts of money invested into these products. To ensure that we do not exceed the upper end of our Net Financing target range, we’ve taken the decision to withdraw Savings Certificates from general sale at this point.
“The volume of sales over the past few months is such that our forecasts show we were at risk of exceeding the top end of the Net Financing range, so we needed to take action to reduce sales.”
The withdrawal of Index-Linked savings certificates is a bitter blow to savers, and in particular pensioners. Regular readers were already aware of the benefits of inflation linked national savings certificates from my post Money tip #30 – One way to protect your savings from inflation, both tax and risk free. With today's record low-interest rates coupled with inflation (measured by RPI) running at around 5%, index-linked certificates offered a risk-free alternative to term based bank deposits - but with tax-free returns guaranteed to beat inflation. These products would have been particularly popular with pensioners living off their savings - but alas all good things come to an end.
