€25k invested in prize bonds

Sorry, no winners were found for selected dates.

Yet another zero on my now 2,000 units. On the other hand, premium bonds paid 3 £50's this month.

There's no hassle if you register to manage them online at Statesavings.ie. I can cash any of my bonds and it reaches my bank account in 1-2 working days, it takes the same as any SEPA transfer, like any instant access account.

€75 here also

I was away all day yesterday and couldn't believe it when I got home...Won €75 ....After months of nothing.

There is a notice on the website with more information available:

The Prize Bond Tracker will be removed in early 2024. Customers can still check winnings using other features on the Website including State Savings Online. We will continue to notify winners by post.

Guess I'll have to sign up to the full State Savings account, kept meaning to get around to it but never did 😀

However as above I also had Prize Bonds belonging to elderly relatives listed in the tracker which will have to be checked separately.

Nothing for me.

I think the NTMA will be very happy to see the fund going down. Like the Credit Unions and the banks they have been trying for a long time to deter new savings. A particular consideration for the NTMA is to keep the percentage of the National Debt accounted for by State Savings stable and low, around the 10% mark. The last thing they need is for the €100 billion sitting in BOI current accounts (as an example) rolling in to State Savings. And could roll in and out depending on how attractive they made the rates. They want that debt to be based on long term borrowings at low interest rates, which they have managed to renew as required.

This is a bit out of date, but it gives an idea of what I mean.

https://www.ntma.ie/business-areas/funding-and-debt-management/statistics-2

That's a real pain, it's backwards they are going, anyway nothing this week, last win 10th November €75 euro, €50 euro 12th May, total wins in 2023 €125 euro.

Nothing today

I’ve had a State Savings Online account from the day it was introduced. Registering for State Savings Online is a bit of a pain as you have to jump through a number of hoops. It's a pity they don't modernise and streamline the registration process. That said you'll certainly see some advantages and benefits once your account is up and running:

• If you have any other state savings products (National Solidarity Bonds, Savings Certs, Savings Bonds, National Instalment Savings) you will also see these. Both sole and joint holdings are shown and identified separately. An Post Deposit Accounts are not displayed.
• Any additional products (including PB) purchased using your State Savings Customer Number are automatically added to your profile. Likewise encashments and maturities are removed. Reinvested PB prizes are also added automatically.
• Additional purchases are very straight forward. Literally fill in 5 fields, add your debit card info and that’s it. You get a receipt online and a second one by e-mail a few minutes later. The new products are added to your profile sometime in the following weeks, although when exactly this happens is entirely unpredictable, State Savings being a law unto themselves.
• You get an e-mail to notify you of any PB winnings shortly after the draw takes place. The winnings aren’t detailed, so it simply acts as an alert. You need to log on to get the details of your prize/s.
• The values of any fixed term savings products in your profile are update daily. 
• You can print summary and detailed versions of your portfolio, and save/store these snapshots. This gives you the self service facility to get an online statement on demand.
• Your profile and details are protected using two factor authentication (TFA) using your mobile phone number
• For PB prizes you can switch between reinvestment and cash transfer to your bank account and vice versa any time you wish
• You can change the bank account to which prizes and encashments are lodged using that online site
• For mature term savings products you can advise your reimburse/reinvest decision online, and make the reinvest option at that point
• Generally speaking, encashments via the portal are handled more efficiently than the paper route. This is not always the case, however when it works it works well. I've had products, including PB disposals, cashed in and the money in my bank in less than a week. At the other extreme I’ve seen it take four weeks, with requests of dubious merit for ID verification and downright stupid and dangerous requests for AML and ID docs to be sent by unencrypted e-mail.
• The list of Prize Bond prizes endures, i.e. the prize remains of your list of wins, even after the winning bond is cashed-in.
• And probably the biggest advantage, it substantially reduces the number of times you need to interact with State Savings sloppy and inconsistent procedures and their poorly trained staff. 

On the downside:

• The State Savings Online platform is quite unstable and poorly supported. It's fallen over at least 7 or 8 times this year and when it falls over it's gone until some time the next working day. On at least three occasions this year it's fallen over on a Friday night and remained offline until sometime Monday morning.
• Site performance can be sluggish, particularly at log-in. It can take up to 2 mins to log in.
• Your PB wins on State Savings Online can be slower to update than the tracker. On one occasion the prize winning e-mail alert wasn’t sent until 12:55 and the win only became visible online at that time. It was visible on the tracker well before that. So as far as the online site is concerned, 12:30 is best effort aspiration, not a hard and fast timeline.
• If you choose to automatically reinvest your winnings, while you’ll get the “winner notification” e-mail at or shortly after 12:30 on the day of the draw, the new bonds awarded don’t appear in your portfolio until the middle of that afternoon. (Not a big deal, just to be aware of the time-lag).
• There is no equivalent of the Prize Bond Tracker’s “Label” field. So if you use this to subdivide your portfolio for analysis purposes you will have to find another way to do so.
• The site requires TFA, which annoys some people. (I have no issue with it, understand why it's necessary and appreciate the security it brings)
• Some functions you'd expect are inexplicably missing e.g. if you cash in a term savings product other than at maturity you can't reinvest the proceeds online. Instead the proceeds are sent to your bank account sometime between 1 and 4 weeks later and you then need to start again with a fresh purchase. 
• When purchasing additional products online, there is absolutely no visibility of your order in the time between your purchase and the issue of the certificate/s. Nothing to say “in progress” or “current status” etc. This can be unnerving especially for larger outlays.
• A mobile phone number can only be used for one registration/portfolio. So if you want to monitor two or more portfolios (e.g. for relatives) you need to use a different phone for each, and have access to them at log-in in order to retrieve the TFA validation code.
• All the advantages and benefits listed above apply to sole holdings. For joint holdings the list is shorter, e.g. encashment instructions cannot be given online and you are still required to fill in forms. 

One other point. When you register, State Savings will conduct a search to identify all holdings in which you have an interest and attach them to your portfolio. In my experience, they aren't very good at this and miss a fair number of holdings, particularly older ones purchased using paper forms before the Prize Bond Customer Number and SSCN were introduced. This happens even when the name and address are substantially correct. So check your portfolio carefully once you are registered and contact them with any corrections. (This raises some serious questions for people such as executors who rely on State Savings to conduct a search on their behalf, but that’s a topic for another day)

Overall it's well worth the time it takes to get registered for the online service, notwithstanding that it could be a lot better. Good luck with it.

Winnings on Dec 15th 2023: €150 (2 x €75)

Last win Nov 24th 2023: €75

Total 2023 winnings to-date: €325 (€50 win in Jan & Feb in addition to the above).

After a barren 8 months of nothing between Feb - Oct (having added 25k in May 2023 to increase to a €65k total holding), the year overall is starting to look better. Still time for more prizes before 2024!!

nothing