The secret bank accounts offering TRIPLE the interest rates you get from HSBC, NatWest, Santander and Barclays - and how YOU can find one to earn an extra £350 a year

Updated: 07:00 EDT, 11 August 2026 Big banks are now paying top rates on easy-access savings accounts with deals over 4pc – but you won’t find them on their own websites or in their branches.Instead, you must ferret out the brand names they operate under. NatWest has a new digital savings brand called First Active; Barclays savings accounts are offered through Tesco Bank; for Santander it’s Cahoot; Lloyds accounts are under MBNA; and top-paying HSBC accounts are offered by savings platform Raisin UK.Finding these secret accounts can earn you £350 more in yearly interest on £10,000 of savings than traditional accounts – and sometimes pay three times more.NatWest launched an Instant Access Savings Account through its First Active brand last week, paying 4.5pc on as little as £1.Link it to your current account (which doesn’t have to be with NatWest) to move money quickly and easily, with no limit on the number of withdrawals.By contrast, on NatWest’s own-brand Flexible Saver, you get just 1pc on up to £25,000, and while its Defined Access Saver pays 2.5pc, this falls to 1.04pc after three withdrawals in a year.You can only open the First Active account online and you can’t open a joint account. Make a diary note to switch after a year when the bonus rate of 1.5 percentage points runs out.HSBC has joined savings platform Raisin UK to offer an Easy Access Account paying 3.51pc with no bonus or withdrawal catches. Accounts on HSBC’s own website pay far less, though. Ultimately, these new accounts are good news for the millions of savers who want to stick to big names for what they see as reasons of convenience and safety NatWest launched an Instant Access Savings Account through its First Active brand last week, paying 4.5pc on as little as £1Its Flexible Saver pays 1.05pc and while its Online Bonus Saver pays 3.35pc, in any month you make a withdrawal it falls to 1.05pc. Barclays offers good rates through Tesco Bank. Its Internet Saver pays 4.21pc, including a 3.16 percentage point bonus for a year, so again mark your diary.That compares well with just 1pc on its Barclays Everyday Saver and 3.96pc on its Rainy Day Saver – on up to £5,000. This falls to just 0.7pc on anything more.Santander pays 4.52pc through the Simple Saver account run by its offshoot Cahoot. Again switch out after a year or you’ll end up earning just 1pc. Even so that’s better than on Santander’s own Everyday Saver, which pays just 2pc (falling to 0.9pc after a year).So far Lloyds only offers a lousy easy-access account through its offshoot MBNA paying 0.75pc.But it has a great one-year fixed-rate bond at 4.85pc against just 3.8pc on its own website.In the star buys listed below, I don’t include accounts that come with bonuses or withdrawal restrictions. But I do keep you informed on what is on offer here.Ultimately, these new accounts are good news for the millions of savers who want to stick to big names for what they see as reasons of convenience and safety – even if other providers offer exactly the same level of both.Such savers have missed out for years on interest because the big banks pay truly awful rates on standard, easy-access accounts.