8 tips to earn to earn savers and borrowers BILLIONS

How much do we lose by not grabbing the best interest rates for our savings and loans?

BILLIONS is the shocking answer.

Householders are losing thousands a year individually - and billions overall - by paying too much for their mortgage.

And savers are losing €800m EVERY YEAR as their money languishes in accounts paying derisory interest, a new Central Bank report showed lately.

The average interest rate banks pay 'on demand' is just 0.13%, acccording to the Central Bank.

Meanwhile, the European Central Bank has just cut its rates for the eighth time in a row in a move that will shake up the mortgage and savings market.

It will certainly hit savers yet borrowers won't necessarily benefit as cuts are not passed on automatically like they used to be. It’s now up to you to seek out the best deal.

That’s well worth doing.

But there are pitfalls aplenty. Banks have loads of new tricks up their sleeves to watch out for – and not all new arrivals on the market offer the best deals.

Yet you can still save or earn thousands by playing your interest rate cards right.

Here are eight tips to help savvy savers and borrowers do just that.

Cheapest mortgage deals

*Savings are vs the dearest fixed rate (not shown in table for fixed rates). according to CCPC.ie.

Based on €240,000 borrowed by a mortgage switcher over 20 years. Most rates available to FTBs.  Correct on 11/06/2025. See www.ccpc.ie for latest rates.

Switch and save

A windfall worth tens of thousands of euros sounds like a life-changing lottery win.

Yet it’s something you could do for yourself with a few hours work.

The difference between the dearest and cheapest fixed rate mortgage deal tots up to €241 a month.

That’s a tasty enough saving. But stretch that out over a year and it’s €2892 – which will eventually become €57,840 over twenty years.

The savings for the best variable rate deals work out similarly.

That’s the extreme end of savings for switching your mortgage, based on swapping the worst deal for the best  - according to the comparison tables of consumer watchdog CCPC.ie, which we reproduce here.

Most savers won’t pocket that much – but even the average saving will tot up to thousands per year.

Those who stand to gain the most are borrowers with  non-mainstream banks whose deals are tied to the vagaries of the wholesale money markets. (Mainstream banks can cushion rate hikes on borrowers by screwing their savers instead.)

These include Nua and Finance Ireland, who have rates up to and beyond 5% in some cases.

Avant Flexes its mortgage muscles

If you are switching to a variable rate, Avant Money, launched here in 2019, takes the plaudits for the cheapest variable mortgage, which also beats the best fixed deals at the moment

It has launched the first sub-3% mortgage since 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, triggering hikes in inflation and therefore interest rates.

And this has done borrowers a huge favour by highlighting how far ‘out of whack’ the mainstream banks’ standard variable rates are.

While some of their fixed rate deals offer reasonable value, their variable rates have been described by some consumer advocates as a ‘disgrace’ – now up to 1.7% higher than Avant Money’s new deal.

ICS is worst at 4.7%, but PTSB (4.5%) and BoI (4.15%) don’t exactly cover themselves with glory either.

In sharp contrast, Avant’s Flex variable rate is just 2.98% - and this will probablyfall further.

This rate is a tracker mortgage which follows ECB rates by a reasonable margin of just 0.9%. When rates fall again, borrowers automatically benefit.

The flipside is that if rates rise, so will the Flex rate.

While Avant Money is tearing up trees in the mortgage market, its fellow newbies Nua and MoCo are not – well not as we went to press earlier this week.

Neither feature among the cheapest deals in comparison tables on the consumer website www.ccpc.ie

In fact, as we went to press, Nua had the dearest mortgage rate (5%) on the CCPC comparison table of the main lenders on its books (although this doesn’t seem to include Finance Ireland, whose rates were comparable.

Time to fix?

Apart from Avant’s Flex rate, most fixed rates are cheaper than their variable cousins, some of which are actually quite dear.

While there is scope for rates to fall further, we are nearing the bottom of the cycle so there’s not much further left to fall.

So this could be the optimal time to fix your rates.

Brokers Ireland said the climate for mortgage borrowers is improving in contrast to savers after the latest Central Bank Retail Interest Rates report for April showed the average new mortgage rate here is 3.72%.

That’s 0.38% higher that the euro area average, but marks a slight improvement.

And over four out of five mortgages are now fixed, said Rachel McGovern, Brokers Ireland Deputy Chief Executive.

“Mortgage (borrowers) are looking for security in a world clouded by uncertainty, and…greater debt with continually rising house prices,” she said.

Know your LTV

Ms. McGovern urges borrowers to find out their current Loan-to-value ratio – and use it to get a better deal.

“Factors that can yield savings include an improved loan-to-value, that is, the ratio of your loan to the value of your home,” she says.

Most LTVs have fallen by a lot as property prices soared.

And you can use this factor to leverage a better deal as a lower LTV entitles you to a lower interest rate.

“It is advisable to review it on a yearly basis but this is something borrowers tend not to do,” she added.

Boost your BER

Improving your Building Energy Rating may also help get a green loan with a lower interest rate, she suggested.

So if you are one of the hundreds of thousands of people who have had home improvements done – this could put you in line for a cheaper mortgage.

As you can see from our table, all the cheapest fixed rate deals are for Green mortgages. AIB’s 3-year fixed Green mortgage is the cheapest fixed rate deal on the table – and the second cheapest mortgage overall.

Savers: move your money

While their ‘on demand’ offerings are appalling, Irish mainstream banks still have some surprisingly good rates over 18 months to two years.

This isn’t bad considering ECB rates are around 2%. 

But these may not be available for much longer so snap them up while you can.

Fixed term deposit accounts with main banks 18m - 2 years

Correct on 11/06/2025; rates may change. See www.ccpc.ie for latest rates.

Deposit digitally

If you want instant access to your money, digital banks are your best bet.

Bunq (2.26%) and Revolut (1.7%) have dropped their rates for instant access accounts. 

But these ‘instant access’ rates are still much better than what mainstream banks are offering for ‘on demand’ money – although they have all fallen recently and will probably do so again. 

After Bunq and Revolut, Raisin.ie – an Irish portal to the  best bank rates across the EU – has the next best rate on our table at 2.21%. 

Fourth-best An Post pays just 0.75% with AIB and EBS  at 0.25%, followed by BoI on 0.1%.

Last and certainly least is PTSB on a truly derisory 0.01% (a rate so low it begs the question, why bother paying interest at all?) 

 Demand accounts

 Correct on 11/06/2025; rates may change. See www.ccpc.ie for latest rates.