Premium Bonds prize pool increases by 52,000
From subsequent month the variety of Premium Bonds prizes will increase by 52,000 
There will be much more Premium Bonds winners from next month as the amount of prizes handed out is set to improve.
Government-backed National Financial savings & Investments, which delivers the bonds, announced the tax-totally free prize charge paid to investors will boost from one.3pc to 1.35pc. The worth of Premium Bond prizes distributed will rise from £52m to £55.5m per month, with 52,000 additional prizes paid out.
From August, a second £1m month to month jackpot prize will be won – some thing announced back in the March Price range by Chancellor George Osborne.
The arrival of this 2nd leading-degree prize sparked concern that except if the overall prize fee have been to rise, the number of smaller would have to fall to compensate.
It appears NS&I has manufactured the necessary adjustments to guarantee the spread of prizes is unaffected. It explained “the amount of prizes in every worth group will improve or remain the same”.
There are 3 worth classes: “higher”, which covers the prizes £5,000, £10,000, £25,000, £50,000, £100,000 and £1m “medium”, which covers the two prize brackets of £500 and £1,000, and a “lower” group for the £100, £50, and £25 prizes. The latter are by far the most quite a few, and account for all around 90pc of the total payout by value.
Following August’s changes the odds of a £1 bond winning anything in any month is also unchanged, at one/26,000.
Cash has been pouring into Premium Bonds. This is not only due to the fact the typical prize price, tax cost-free, is not unattractive beside other, taxed accounts, but since in June the maximum sum anybody could invest in the bonds was improved from £30,000 to £40,000.
At the time of the enhance NS&I stated inquiries had been 30pc higher than typical. About 600,000 Premium Bond investors – out of a complete of far more than 21m – have invested the optimum.
NS&I was given one more improve in Mr Osborne’s “budget for savers” when it was announced that from following yr it would offer “pensioner bonds”. Couple of particulars have however been released other than that the bonds will be for over-65s only, with terms of 1 and three years.
– Updates on Premium Bond alterations are incorporated in our weekly e-mail
What are Premium Bonds?
The lottery-design bonds were launched by Harold Macmillan’s government in 1956 and have considering that proved hugely common, regardless of the arrival of far bigger lottery prizes in latest decades.
Premium bonds played a huge part in NS&I’s wider, historic perform of raising money from the conserving public as a cheaper substitute to raising finance on the capital markets.
Because National Savings, which beame NS&I, was a Government agency it could grant unique tax standing to its financial savings items – and so Premium Bond winnings have usually been tax-free of charge.
Map: is it less expensive to reside in the city or a commuter hotspot?