Saving Gateway
The Saving Gateway is a cash saving account for working age people on lower incomes. It will provide a strong incentive to save, through a Government contribution of 50p for each pound saved. The first Saving Gateway accounts will be available in July 2010.
The Saving Gateway Accounts Act, which put in place the rules for the scheme, received Royal Assent in July 2009. This Act sets in place the rules for the scheme. Saving Gateway Accounts Regulations were also made in October 2009 and are available on the OPSI website.
The aims of the Saving Gateway are to kick-start a saving habit among working age people on lower incomes, by providing a strong incentive to save through a Government contribution for each pound saved; and promote financial inclusion, by encouraging people to engage with mainstream financial services.
The Saving Gateway was first proposed in 2001 and since then it has been consulted on and successfully piloted twice. Both pilots were independently evaluated, and further research on the second pilot was also published on 8 June 2009. This further research followed up participants around two years after their Saving Gateway had matured, in order to explore longer-term changes in saving behaviour and attitudes. Copies of the evaluation and research reports are available below.
A document seeking views on the operation and administration of the national scheme, 'The Saving Gateway: Operating a national scheme', was published alongside Budget 2008. A summary of responses to this consultation, which also sets out the design of the national scheme, was published alongside the introduction of the Act.
Eligibility for Saving Gateway accounts will be passported from the following qualifying benefits and tax credits:
- income support;
- jobseeker’s allowance;
- incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance;
- severe disablement allowance;
- working tax credit (with income below a specified level); and
- child tax credit (with income below a specified level).
Recipients of carer's allowance will also be eligble.
Accounts will run for two years and will be offered by financial institutions such as banks, building societies and credit unions. The Government contribution of 50p for each pound saved will be paid at the end of the accounts.
More information about the Saving Gateway is available on the HMRC and Directgov websites.
Related links
Further detail on the two pilots of the Saving Gateway is below.
Some of the documents are available in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer you can download the software free of charge from the Adobe website. For alternative ways to read PDF documents and further information on website accessibility visit the HM Treasury accessibility page.
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