NS&I closes Ordinary Account

National Savings and Investments (NS&I) has announced that the Ordinary Account is now officially closed.

16:36 02 August 2004

National Savings and Investments (NS&I) has announced that the Ordinary Account is now officially closed.

As a result customers will no longer be able to make deposits or withdrawals from the old account.

It completes NS&I's push since December last year to bring an end to the Ordinary Account and replace it with the Easy Access Savings Account, which has been running since January 2004.

So far customers have requested the transfer of 250,000 accounts to the Easy Access Savings Account - a rate of over 2,000 a day.

This follows six months of trying to make the public aware of the change-over. During that time NS&I has written to 2.6 million customers, as well as undertaking a major media campaign.

However, around 200,000 Ordinary Accounts are still used regularly. Before this announcement of the closure 10,000 customers were continuing to make deposits every week.

Furthermore, there are around half a million customers holding accounts with an average balance of around 850 who have not transferred their savings.

NS&I now urges these customers to make the transfer as soon as possible to avoid any inconvenience.

New customers to NS&I make up ten per cent of investments in the Easy Access Savings Account.