TSB has launched a new £1,000 monthly prize draw to help its current account customers get into the habit of saving.
Each month TSB will award five prizes of £1,000 and fifty prizes of £100 to randomly selected customers who enter the draw.
To enrol, current account customers need to put money into a ‘savings pot’ within their Spend & Save, or Spend & Save Plus current account.
TSB customers with Spend & Save and Spend & Save Plus accounts could win a £1,000 prize
TSB’s savings pots are designed to encourage its current account customers to put aside cash for specific reasons, meaning there are often pots with names like ‘Holiday fund’ and ‘New trainers’ for example.
To enter the new prize draw, customers will need to label their savings pot ‘My Dream’ and deposit at least £10 in it by 7pm on the last working day of each month.
The prize draw will run from 1 November to 31 May 2022.
There will be six draws, the first of which will be awarded in December, with the money paid directly into customers’ savings pots.
Peter Hatton, TSB’s head of savings, said: ‘Our Spend & Save current accounts are proving popular with customers as they use their savings pots towards goals such as a holiday, new car, or home renovations.
‘We’re pleased to offer a prize draw that will give customers another great incentive to save.’
How does it compare to other banks?
Nationwide and Halifax both offer similar prize draws to their customers, but on a larger scale.
Halifax offers three prizes worth £100,000, and 100 worth £1,000 as well as 1,500 worth £100.
It has paid out £57million to more than 105,000 savers since it launched the draw in 2011.
Current account customers can register through online banking or by visiting a local branch.
But there is a higher barrier to entry than with TSB, as you’ll need to hold £5,000 or more in savings for a whole month to be entered into the next month’s prize draw.
The £5,000 can be made up of multiple pots across any Halifax savings account including cash Isas, although children’s accounts are excluded.
Nationwide members can also benefit from a monthly prize draw split into 8,008 prizes, with one worth £100,000, two worth £25,000, five worth £10,000 and the rest all worth £100.
Unlike, with TSB or Halifax, Nationwide members are automatically opted in, so as long as you hold a mortgage, savings account or current account with Nationwide, there is nothing to do.
To be part of Nationwide’s monthly prize draw, you need to be a member with either a mortgage, a personal savings account or a current account
TSB’s prize may seem a relatively paltry sum compared to the Halifax or Nationwide offerings, but before writing it off savers might want to consider the odds of actually winning.
At present TSB claims to have around 150,000 savings pots being used – although that number is likely to rise as more customers become aware of the draw, meaning the sooner you opt in, the better your odds.
Based on the current number of people opted in, there is roughly a one in 2,700 chance of winning either a £1,000 or £100 monthly prize, or one in 445 over the course of the six month period.
Nationwide currently has around 14.2 million members eligible for the first Member Prize Draw, which would mean the odds of winning any prize are around 1 in 1,750, although these odds will change month-on-month depending on the final number of members eligible for entry.
The odds of winning one of the eight big-value prizes of either £10,000, £25,000 or £100,000 is just one in 1,775,000 each month.
Lloyds Banking Group, which Halifax is a part of, declined to state how many customers are currently eligible due to the figures changing from month to month.
Each month over 1,600 savings customers in the Halifax draw are randomly selected to win money.
NS&I pays out around three million tax-free prizes ranging from £25 to £1million every month to Premium Bond holders
How does it compare against premium bonds?
When it comes to monthly prize draws, NS&I’s Premium Bonds will likely be the first product that comes to most people minds.
The Premium Bond draw has been running since 1956 and there are now 21.1million Premium Bond holders holding more than 113 billion eligible £1 bonds between them.
NS&I pays out around three million tax- free prizes ranging from £25 to £1million every month to Bond holders
The odds of winning a monthly prize with £1 bond is currently fixed at 34,500.
The odds of winning the £1 million prize with a single £1 bond are just one in 56.54 billion whilst the odds of winning a £100,000 prize is one in 22.62 billion.
Of course, this improves depending on how much you put in.
Having £50,000 worth of Premium Bonds will improve your odds of winning the £1million jackpot to one in 1,130,800.
A lesser known alternative to Premium Bonds is the Family Building Society’s Windfall Bonds.
Family Building Society’s Windfall Bonds, which began in 2015, have £127million stashed away in them and only a few thousand customers
Premium Bonds only require a minimum investment of £25 to enter the draw, whilst Windfall Bonds require a far heftier £10,000 deposit.
However, there is no maximum cap on Windfall Bonds, subject to availability, whereas with Premium Bonds you can deposit a maximum of £50,000.
There are currently 12,700 Windfall Bond accounts, each holding £10,000 – but many bond holders have more than one account.
Each qualifying £10,000 bond is entered into a free draw for a chance to win one of 21 monthly prizes. There are fifteen worth £1,000, three worth £2,500, two worth £10,000 and one £50,000 prize.
Each qualifying entry can win only one prize each month, and according to the building society each individual Windfall Bond entered into the draw has a one in 714 chance of winning a prize in any given draw.
THIS IS MONEY’S FIVE OF THE BEST CURRENT ACCOUNTS
Lloyds Bank’s Club Lloyds account will pay £125 when you switch. There is a £3 monthly fee but this is waived if you pay in at least £1,500 each month. You also earn monthly credit interest on balances up to £5,000 and can choose a reward each year, including 6 cinema tickets.
Virgin Money’s M Plus Account offers £20,000 Virgin Points to spend via Virgin Red when you switch and pays 2.02 per cent monthly interest on up to £1,000. To get the bonus, £1,000 must be paid into a linked easy-access account paying 1% interest and 2 direct debits transferred over.
HSBC’s Advance Account pays £170 when you switch to the account. You need to set up two direct debits or standing orders and pay in at least £1,500 into the account within the first 60 days.
First Direct will give newcomers £150 when they switch their account. It also offers a £250 interest-free overdraft. Customers must pay in at least £1,000 within three months of opening the account.
Nationwide’s FlexDirect account comes with up to £125 cash incentive for new and existing customers. Plus 2% interest on up to £1,500 – the highest interest rate on any current account – if you pay in at least £1,000 each month, plus a fee-free overdraft. Both the latter perks last for a year.
Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.
