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Abbey and Alliance & Leicester today each launched a new bank account in an attempt to win more customers from their larger rivals. At the moment, almost three-quarters of adults with a current account bank with one of the so-called Big Four, which are Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, and RBS/NatWest. In return for their customers' loyalty, these banks pay them very low rates of credit interest, and charge a fortune for borrowing, especially via unauthorised overdrafts. Typically, these customers earn 0.1% a year before interest on their credit balance, which comes to £1 a year on an average balance of £1,000 - and that's before tax! What's more, when these customers accidentally slip into the red, they are hit with extortionate charges and sky-high rates of interest, as I explained in Rip-off Bank Charges Under Attack! However, it doesn't have to be this way. Thanks to an improved Banking Code and greater co-operation between banks when dealing with switchers, moving your current account has never been easier. To get you started, here are the details of these two brand-new accounts - credit interest rates are shown gross (before tax is taken off): Abbey's new account pays 6% AER on credit balances up to £1,000, which is the UK's highest-paying current account. However, this rate comes with five strings attached: (If you don't know what an AER is, this article explains all!) So, in other words, this account pays an ongoing rate of 2.5% AER, but with an extra 3.5% paid on up to £1,000 for the first year only. Got that? This is so complex that I bet it was dreamt up by an expert in what I call "confusion marketing"! Note that this account is unattractive when you're overdrawn, as it charges a typical rate of 16.9% APR (or 9.9% APR if you opt to be paid 0.1% AER on credit balances), plus a whopping 28.7% APR on unauthorised borrowing! Additionally, Abbey is offering these customers a fixed-rate regular-savings account paying 6% AER on monthly deposits of £20 to £250 by standing order. If customers fail to make eleven consecutive payments, this rate plummets to 0.75% AER, so this account is purely for patient savers! After one year, the capital and accrued interest will be transferred to a Monthly Saver account, which pays a more modest 4.75% a year. Alliance & Leicester's Premier Direct account has no branch access but can be accessed online, via ATMs, by telephone and at Post Offices. The minimum monthly deposit is £500 and you must be aged 21 when applying. It offers an interest-free overdraft for one year, followed by a rate of 5.9% on both approved and unauthorised overdrafts, making it the clear winner in this category. Furthermore, it pays a fixed interest rate of 5% AER on up to £2,500 until the end of next year (and 0.1% AER on any excess balance over £2,500). After 2006, the rate becomes the Bank of England base rate minus 1%, hence, based on today's base rate of 4.5%, this would equate to 3.5% a year. As an added bonus, if you recommend a friend to open an account, you both receive £50 cash. Nice! To summarise, the Abbey account looks above-average for customers who stay in credit and whose take-home pay is not much more than £1,000 a month. On the other hand, the A&L account looks much better for even occasional borrowers, and for customers with larger incomes (up to £2,500 a month). You can open an A&L account, amongst others, via our banking centre. Finally, don't just bin your bad bank account, because your bank's range of credit cards and personal loans will be just as awful! To track down Best Buy credit cards, read Five Tips To Choose A Loan; for lovely loans, look at From 30% To 0% In Sixty Seconds! More: Check out the ace accounts in our Banking centre | Avoid interest with a 0% credit card!