The good news is they still appear to be linked to the RPI. There was speculation on some forums that the government may try and shift them to the CPI. They also still remain tax free.
The bad news is that only an Issue 48, 5 year seems to be available at the moment. This issue unfortunately has a lower return than the previous issue at Index Linking + 0.5% AER down from the previous 1.0%.
With the CPI at 4.0% and the RPI at 5.3% I can find no other way of getting a real after tax return while keeping my money “safe”. You certainly aren’t going to get it from a UK savings account. Given that fact I wonder how long we have before they are “sold out”.
As always do your own research.
The 5 year time frame is a bit of a disappointment and, although you can pull out early, most of the benefit acccrues in the last two years.
ReplyDeleteI expect demand will be high, but I'm not rushing in. I'm coming round to thinking Mervyn may be right this time.