Last Updated on 3 September 2025 by Dan Wilderness
Hello everyone! As interest rates have crept up again, a new type of account has appeared from some providers in the form of an active savings account. Today, we’re reviewing if this is worth considering for getting the most out of your savings.
We’ve focused on the key players in the market in our review, which are Hargreaves Landsdown, Interactive Investor, and Raisin.
(Please note: The Financial Wilderness may also receive a small payout if you make a purchase through a link on this site. It won’t affect the service you receive and we recommend only what we honestly believe to be the best available, not what gives us commission. You can read more about our affiliate policy on our disclaimers page.)
What is an active savings account?
An active savings account is effectively a single account that automatically moves your money between different banks, building societies and current account providers to ensure you’re consistently getting the best rate on your savings.
This is designed to help counter the problem that whilst we often have good intentions about moving our money around and get it into the best paying account, we often perceive it as a big challenge, or worry something will go wrong when our present bank is “working”.
Whilst in truth a lot of these are myths which we covered in our recent article on if bank switching is worth it, an active savings account can be an even better solution.
How does an active savings account work?
With an active savings account deposits your money in “savings hub” with your provider – which in itself won’t usually earn interest.
However, you can then choose options in your provider to effectively deposit the money elsewhere via them, without the need to set up an account with each bank. You’ll see a full range of providers and exactly what they’re offering in a table, as demonstrated at Hargreaves Landsdown below
Once you’ve selected your option, your money is transferred to an account with the bank you’ve selected – but you’ll always simply manage it through your active savings provider.
What type of savings accounts can I pick with an Active Saving Account?
With most providers, you can usually pick from two key options:
Instant Access Account
Your standard bank account that you can withdraw or add money too at any stage – just also getting you some additional interest rate.
You can also get this in the form of a cash ISA, which if not using for any other purpose, will shield you from being taxed on your savings if you earn enough to go over your personal threshold. You can read more about all the different types of ISA’s here.
A Fixed Term Account or Bond
With these fixed term products, you’re likely to get a higher rate of interest – but with the condition that you’re agreeing to make your deposit for an agreed period, which is usually 1 or 2 years.
Effectively, the bank is rewarding you for the certainty that it is able to rely on your deposit – you are trading away liquidity of having the money handy for extra reward. You can usually get the money if you need it in an emergency situation, but sacrifice all interest if you do so.
If you want to save your money but have no fixed purpose for it, the fixed option may give you additional benefit.
What protections do I have with Active Savings Accounts?
Whilst most accounts with benefit from standard FSCS protection, which will reimburse you up to £85k if the bank you are saving with goes bust – there’s some variability in this space with electronic money institutions.
In the case of the three main providers in the space at the time of writing:
- With Hargreaves Landsdown and Interactive Investor, all savings are held with FSCS covered institutions.
- In the case of Raisin, most are covered by FSCS or in some cases an equivalent European Scheme but worth checking before making decisions on your deposits.
What are the Advantages of Active Savings Accounts?
Active Savings Accounts provide easy access to higher interest rates
As with most things in life, having choice and competition works to your favour, and by using these accounts you have a lot of ability and information to make changes to get better rates on a relatively easy basis.
Active Savings Accounts reduce your admin
As you only have to sign up once, the pain of having to apply for multiple bank accounts or to chase round different providers is eased.
Owing to you effectively accessing a rate supermarket, you’ll sometimes find that rates are offered via active saving platforms that are not available directly or elsewhere to try and attract you, very much in your interest.
What are the Disadvantages of Active Savings Accounts?
They still require some work on your part
Active Savings Accounts save you a lot of time, but you’ll still need to do some work.
You’ll need to select any instant savings account, and will have to take action to move it if a higher rate becomes available, as your provider can’t simply move your money themselves.
If you go for a fixed term account and the period ends, you’ll need to select a new one to save the money again – it won’t automatically re-invest.
However, the providers will all help by giving you nudges and alerts that you’ll need to take action to help this process – and both of the above are pretty quick to do in practice.
You may be able to get an even better interest rate elsewhere
Whilst Active Savings platforms will give you a huge amount of choice, they still represent some of the savings market rather than all of it.
As a result whilst they’ll help you get a good deal, you may be able to get an even better one by shopping around!
Minimum Deposits are sometimes required
For the notice accounts, some of them require a minimum deposit of £1,000 to ensure they are viable. Whilst this isn’t unreasonable, it’s not particularly helpful if you’re looking to just a small amount away for a rainy day.
Whilst there were a few high minimum deposits in the easy access list, I’ve found in the providers I looked at most simply had a minimum deposit of £1.
Are Active Savings Accounts free?
Yes, to you as the consumer the ones at least we’ve listed here (Hargreaves Landsdown, Interactive Investor and Raisin) are free – if you go elsewhere, you’ll need to double check yourself.
The reasoning behind this is that the banks and building societies actively want these deposits – so the platform charges the banks for the service, rather than yourself.
Alternatives to Savings Accounts
If you’re looking for alternatives to savings account, we compared our returns from savings accounts vs. premium bonds vs. mutual funds here to show what different investment products and risk profiles can do.
We also conducted a review into high interest (but usually with a capped pay-in) regular savings accounts which banks usually just allow direct access to.
Any questions?
If you have any question on these accounts or would like to share your own experiences of them we’ve absolutely love to hear from you! Just leave us a note in the comments below.
And that’s it!
Thank you for reading! You can sign up below to get our new articles delivered to you on a range of financial topics, or remember you can follow our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.
Best to start with moneyfacts, who will include accounts from active providers where necessary.
I used Raisin some months back for a notice account but found I could not make any partial withdrawals. Also any deposits/withdrawals have to go through a non interest bearing current holding account so they can have the benefit of your money for a few days.
I also had problems with interest calculations and took a lot of effort to sort out
Thanks Nick, that’s really helpful to hear your experiences with Raisin – it’s the one of the three I used least when researching this. On the non interest bearing account I’ve seen that as a common problem – I’ve found with the others I can set up a default easy access anything uninterested goes to, but it still sits in a non-interest briefly.