Popular NS&I certificates withdrawn from general sale

National Savings & Investments (NS&I) today announced both its fixed interest savings certificates and index-linked savings certificates have been withdrawn from general sale - because they are attracting too much investment.

It said by withdrawing the current issue now, it will ensure the net financing target set by the Chancellor for 2011/12 should not be exceeded.

It follows four months of strong sales in which NS&I said it processed some 500,000 transactions.

If the products remained on sale, it would risk destablising the market because they can attract too much money from consumers. Ultimately, this could limit banks' ability to lend.

The government withdrew its index-linked national savings certificates for the same reason in July last year, but they were reintroduced in May after the Chancellor set NS&I a positive funding target for 2011/12.

NS&I's website and call centres stopped taking new sales at close of business yesterday (6 September). Postal applications received today will be honoured, but all postal applications received after midnight tonight will be returned to the customer.

Jane Platt, NS&I chief executive, said: "During the almost four months that savings certificates have been on sale, there have been approaching 500,000 transactions into the latest issue of index-linked certificates.

"Over this period, we've seen significant amounts of money invested into these products. To ensure that we do not exceed the upper end of our net financing target range, we've taken the decision to withdraw savings certificates from general sale at this point.

"The volume of sales over the past few months is such that our forecasts show we were at risk of exceeding the top end of the net financing range, so we needed to take action to reduce sales."