But not for long… If you are looking for income from your cash then the RSA Retail Bond (2 year fixed-rate option) is still offering 8% – that’s about the best “guaranteed” option available. But that rate is likely to fall by about 0.5% at the beginning of December (the repo rate was cut by 0.5% to 5.5% last week). To qualify for the 8% rate you need to have invested the money with them before the end of November, so you...

The short term outlook for interest rates seems to be bad for those that are living off interest income…it looks like interest rates could stay low for quite a while and it is even possible that we could see another cut before the year end. (Once again) if you are a pensioner living off interest income your “salary” has effectively been halved over the past few years by all the interest cuts and while inflation might...

I heard an advert on the radio last night for Nedbank’s new “Park-it Limited Edition Investment account”…seems that if you give them R10000, they will give you up to 6.25%* interest per annum and after the first 14 days you can have access to your funds with 24 hour notice. There are at least 2 problems with this… “Up to” 6.25% (turns out you need to invest R1million to get this rate –...

With interest rates having fallen so far and the possibility of still more cuts on the horizon, anyone looking for interest income is pretty hamstrung at this stage. Money market rates are 7% per annum and many of the banks are offering “exceptional rates” for 1 year fixed deposits. They will even “enhance” this if you are over 55. For anyone who is prepared to be locked in for a while there is an even better option...