Would you park your savings in accounts?

CAR maker Ford is to start offering savings accounts and Isas online. The motor giant this week launches an online bank named Ford Money.

It pledges to offer savers fair and consistent rates online and a seven- day-a-week telephone helpline. The returns are not the very best, but are competitive.

On its easy-access account, you can earn 0.85 pc on £1 or more. This compares to the top online easy access rate of 1.1 pc from French-owned RCI Bank UK, part of another car company, Renault Group.

The next best rates are new deals launched over the past week by Charter Savings Bank, which pays 1.01 pc, and Kent Reliance, which pays 1 pc on its Easy Access Issue 18.

Unlike the big High Street banks, Ford Money promises never to pay less to its existing savers than new ones on its variable rate accounts.

Its one-year fixed-bond pays 1.32 pc and there is a two-year deal at 1.5 pc. By comparison, Paragon Bank pays 1.51 pc over one year and Secure Trust pays 1.85 pc over two.

Your money with Ford is covered up to £85,000 per person by the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Anna Bowes, from savings advice website Savings Champion, says: ‘It is good to see a new bank offering cash Isas as well as easyaccess and fixed rate bonds and it appears to tick all the boxes.’

Ford Money arrives as other small challenger banks compete for attention by raising their rates. However, unlike most new banks, it also offers cash Isas.

And in a further boost, it’ll allow you to mix and match accounts. It means you can split your Isa allowance between fixed and variable deals without breaking cash Isa rules.

Few providers — other than Nationwide and Newcastle — offer this. With most, you have to choose an easy-access or fixed-rate account. If you open both, they count as two different cash Isas. You can open only one during any tax year.

Ford Money pays 0.8 pc on its easy-access Flexible Cash Isa. It also offers 0.95 pc for one year and 1.1 pc for two.

The Isas are also ‘flexible’ — this is an important feature on easy-access accounts now that your cash Isa allowance is a whopping £20,000. It means you can tap into your savings without affecting your Isa allowance. New Isa rules last year gave you the freedom to take money out of your account and replace it in the same tax year without losing any of your tax-free entitlement. It is up to banks and building societies as to whether they offer this flexibility — and not all do. With a non-flexible Isa, if you put in £20,000 then take out £1,000, you can’t put it back, so lose that part of your allowance. Among the top payers on easy-access Isas, NatWest and RBS — at 1.01 pc and 1.05 pc including a short-term bonus — are non-flexible. Skipton BS Bonus Cash Isa at 1 pc including a 0.35 percentage point bonus for the first year and Coventry BS at 1.05 pc on its Easy Access Isa 5 are flexible. The top one-year fixedrate deal comes from Yorkshire BS at 1.1 pc until April 30 next year. It also offers a top 1.25 pc fixed for two years. Principality pays a higher 1.4 pc for 18 months, but the account is only available through its branches.