How does interest work?

Effective on the 1st of October 2025, in certain countries, uninvested cash held in your Lightyear account will earn interest. This depends on your country of residence and the currencies you hold. The rates you will receive are outlined in the table below. For the current live rates, please check the app.

Higher returns are available with Lightyear Vaults and our Cash ISA. Please note that Vaults are an investment product with daily variable rates.

Earned daily, paid monthly on the 1st business day.

Lightyear retains the difference between the interest we receive and the interest paid to you. The interest retained by Lightyear is to cover the cost to us of managing the cash and the wider operation of your Lightyear account.

• For eligible balances, you’ll start earning interest daily, on the same day as your deposit hits your Lightyear account.
• Interest payments will be credited to your Lightyear account on the first business day of every month, and you can see the interest that you have been paid in the Lightyear app and in your statements.
• Money that’s been reserved for orders or other reasons does not accrue interest, and if you close your account before the next interest payment date, it won’t be paid out.
• We calculate the unpaid interest daily on the available uninvested cash balance of your investment account to five decimal places using the latest Lightyear rate. We then sum and round the unpaid interest amounts to two decimal places.

Please note you’ll be responsible for the appropriate tax reporting and payments, in accordance with your local tax laws. You can opt out from earning interest by navigating to “Earn Interest” under the Settings page, which will cause any unpaid interest to be forfeited.

Earning interest on your uninvested money does not change the way your money is segregated or safeguarded. We always hold our customers’ uninvested money in segregated client money accounts in Natwest bank and highest-rated* qualifying money market funds which you can read more about in our article How are my assets protected?.

*rated AAA/mmf by Moody’s, S&P and Fitch