Leading independent digital marketing agency,
Greenlight, has reported that internet searches for the term ‘ISA
rates’ increased by 82% in April compared to January.
Greenlight’s quarterly
report, ‘Retail Banking Sector Report – Issue 12’ noted that by
contrast to ISA searches, interest in the term ‘savings accounts’
fell by 18% in April compared with January.
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Greenlight’s figures are
unsurprising given the surge in deposits into cash ISA’s as the UK
tax year end approached on 5 April.
Consumer dismay relating to the ongoing low
interest rate environment resulted in a 50% increase in cash ISA’s
deposits in April compared to April last year.
Figures released by the British Bankers Association (BBA)
showed that £7.5bn was placed in ISA’s in April, the peak of the
ISA season.
Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) were
introduced in April 1999 to replace PEPs and Tessas.
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By GlobalDataThe current maximum limit per customer is
£11,280 of which up to £5,640 can be in the form of cash.
Alternatively, the entire maximum of £11,280
can be made up of shares.
Competition among UK banks ramped up as the
ISA season peaked with major digital and traditional forms of
marketing used by the banks to attract account switchers.
The growth in consumer interest in ISA’s
helped to increase sector wide personal deposits to rise by 3.9%,
with £666.4 billion held in personal deposits and savings,
according to the BBA.
Greenlight’s quarterly
report noted that overall, total searches for retail-banking
related products fell by 4% to 2.4m in April (January 2.5m).
Greenlight’s report
profiled the most popular keywords consumers use when they went
online in April to find mortgages, loans, credit and debit cards
and bank accounts.
It found that the total number of searches for
retail-banking related products in April totalled 2.4 million down
from 2.5 million in January.
In April, the number of searches relating to loans (792,741),
mortgages (719,593) and credit and debit cards (298,535),
represented a dip on January’s levels.
Bank account-related terms were the exception. Search volumes for
the subsector totalled 592,926, up 14% on January’s 521,172
total.
Greenlight’s research shows
searches pertaining to ISAs were the key contributor to this volume
increase.
Greenlight’s report
also ranked the 20 most visible sites for bank account keywords in
natural search, in relation to the most popular search
terms.
The league table reveals that three of the top five were price
comparison sites. MoneySavingExpert was the most visible, achieving
a 79% share of visibility. Halifax, the most visible high street
bank, ranked third with a 48% share of visibility.
