Premium Bond sales rocket £6bn

By THIS IS MONEY
Updated: 04:05 EST, 30 May 2007

Savers have invested billions of pounds in new Premium Bonds in the hope of scooping one of five jackpot prizes.

Since National Savings and Investments kicked off celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Premium Bonds, £6.6bn has been invested, with £2.2bn worth of Bonds sold in October 2006 alone - the highest monthly total to date.

More than 500,000 people have bought their first Premium Bond during this period, taking the total number of customers to 23.7m. With £36bn now invested in Premium Bonds, a record number of Bonds will be in next week's draw, which will pay out five £1m jackpots instead of the usual two.

June's draw is the second of NS&I's two anniversary draws to celebrate 50 years of Premium Bonds and marks 50 years since Ernie (Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment) first went into action. It has the largest prize fund to date with almost 1.5m prizes worth more than £116m. In December 2006 five £1m jackpots were also paid out to mark 50 years since Premium Bonds first went on sale.

John Prout, NS& I's sales director, said: 'The past eight months have seen a huge surge of interest in Premium Bonds. Despite being launched 50 years ago, they continue to attract new customers: in just the last eight months, over half am people have begun saving in Premium Bonds for the first time. The anniversary draws, combined with the ease of investing online have appealed to old and new customers alike.'

The first Premium Bonds draw was held in June 1957. It took Ernie 54 hours to complete the draw which paid out 23,142 prizes worth £969,750. The top prize was £1,000 and smallest £25. There were 49m Bonds eligible for the first draw.

Since then, 154m tax-free prizes worth almost £9.8bn have been paid out. Prizes now range from £50 to £1m and it takes Ernie only a few hours to generate the winning numbers. Ernie has created 183maires since the £1m jackpot was introduced in 1994.

PREMIUM BONDS FACTS

• The previous record for Premium Bond sales was £1.1bn sold in May 2003 when NS& I increased the maximum investment limit from £20,000 to £30,000.

• NS&I sold £8.2bn worth of Premium Bonds in 2006/07, up from £7.8bn in 2005/06.

• On 30 October 2006 a massive £244m were sold - average daily sales in the last year were £25m (May 2006 to April 2007)