I’ve opened an Income Bonds account – why hasn’t my balance updated?

When you open a new Income Bonds account, your balance may not be updated straight away. Don’t worry if this happens – there are sometimes a few things we need to do behind the scenes before we update your balance.

For example, if we’ve asked you to send proof of your identity, you won’t see your account or balance in your dashboard until we’ve received and checked your documents.

How long your balance takes to update can vary depending on how and when you made your deposit.

How you made your deposit

• By debit card

  If you opened your account by debit card between the 20th of a month and the 5th of the following month, your deposit won’t show in your balance until the next banking day after the 5th. This is because we use this period to start calculating and preparing all the monthly interest payments.

  You will, however, be able to see your deposit in the ‘Pending transactions’ section of your online account.

• Bank transfer

  When you make a bank transfer, the money takes two to three banking days to reach your Income Bonds account. This is because NS&I is not a bank, so we can’t receive payments directly into individual NS&I accounts – they have to go through our clearing bank first.

When do I start earning interest?

• Debit card deposits

  As soon as you give us your card details and your bank authorises the payment, we know that the money is on its way to us. We will calculate the interest from that day, even though we don’t receive the money from your bank straight away. This means you’re earning interest on your Income Bonds before the money is actually in your account!

• Bank transfers

  Unlike a debit card payment, we don’t know that the money is on its way to us when it is sent by bank transfer, so we calculate the interest from the day we receive the money.

When will I get my first interest payment?

If you open your account on or after the 20th of any month, we may not be able to make the first interest payment on the 5th of the following month. But don't worry, you'll receive it the month after that.