If pensioner bonds continue to prove as popular as they have been in the first two days of launch, they would be sold out as February begins, number crunching shows.
On Thursday and Friday last week, the pensioner bond - officially known as the 65+ Guaranteed Growth Bond, offering best buy one year and three year fixed-rates – saw £1.153billion pour in via National Savings and Investments as starved savers snapped them up.
With a maximum of £10billion allocated, if sales carried on at the rate of £576.5million per day, the bonds would sell out just 17 days after launch, on Sunday 1 February 2015. And the figures quoted by NS&I do not yet include postal applications.
Pouring cash: Pensioner bonds have proved popular with the over-65s - will they sell out before the end of January?
Despite the frenzy which saw phone lines jammed last week and transactions struggling to go through, Chancellor George Osborne has hailed the bonds a success.
He also believes the bonds will be on sale for months. He said: 'I can confirm that the latest figures show that our 65+ Pensioner Bond has had the biggest opening sales of any retail financial product in Britain's modern history.
'There's plenty more available as we're offering up to £10billion for sale, so we expect them to be on sale for months. It just shows what an appetite there is for an economic plan that rewards savers.'
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- Virgin Money boosts rate on its best buy one-year fixed cash Isa to offer alternative to pensioner bonds
Many will question how much Osborne has rewarded savers in the last few years. The funding for lending scheme for example, which enabled banks and building societies to tap into cheap money from the Government, has resulted in a race to the bottom when it comes to rates offered savers.
The independent This is Money savings tables are littered with smaller providers, many without any high street presence.
How long? George Osborne believes they will be available for months
The top one-year fixed rates for example are offered by the Islamic Bank of Britain, State Bank of India, National Counties Building Society, Paragon Bank, Aldermore Bank, Harrods Bank and Shawbrook Bank.
None of these rates come close to the pensioner bond offering, with a one-year fix coming with a 2.8 per cent rate and three-year fix four per cent.
On top of this, many have complained about the rates only being offered to those aged over 65 and are seen as a pre-election bribe to the older generation.
As a result of the boom in demand, NS&I has had to take on 100 extra staff to man its call centre.
On Friday, This is Money revealed they took on 300 extra staff in anticipation for the products.
Andrew Hagger, of independent finance website Moneycomms, said: There will always be an initial surge when these sort of deals are launched.
'However, with more than 10 per cent of the allocation snapped up in the first two days, I wouldn't be surprised if it was totally sold out within five to six weeks.
'You've got to factor in that some applications will be made via post and will take a few days before they reach NS&I.'
21-DAY WAIT FOR REFUND?
One reader, David, from Dumbarton, Scotland, attempted to deposit £40,000 into the bond for both he and his wife.
The NS&I website crashed many times while on another attempt, he received a note saying the bank refused the transaction.
However, when he checked with the bank there had been no refusals and instead NS&I had taken £60,000 from their account.
After speaking to NS&I customer services, he was informed it could take 21 DAYS to refund the £20,000.
An NS&I spokesman said: 'Refunds ordinarily take a matter of hours but due to the huge popularity are taking longer. Any payments made mistakenly over the past few days should appear in bank accounts this week.'
Virgin Money upped the rate on its one-year fixed-rate cash Isa to 1.7 per cent shortly after the pensioner bond launch. However, Andrew doesn't believe the launch will help boost rates offered by banks and building societies.
He added: 'There are no signs that banks or building societies are fighting back or showing a renewed appetite for retail savings balances - and there haven't been any changes to fixed savings rates worthy of mention in the last few days.'
Anna Bowes, of rate checking website Savings Champion, said: 'There is no real gauge as to how popular these accounts have been as postal applications have not been added to the figure yet and many people would have chosen this route.
Also, with the IT problems, it is hard to tell how much more could have sold in the first two days. We believe they will sell out quicker than the Government is predicting, but it's hard to put a precise date on it – you'd expect there to be an initial influx before tailing off.
'In terms of savings rates, this won't cause any sweeping changes. It is important for savers to move their money from non-competitive accounts into better ones – this would see more competition.'
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