About savings and investment for retirement

Once you’ve retired, you could be receiving income from a number of different sources. These could include a personal pension, a company pension, the state pension scheme and income from investments.

As you approach retirement, you may be prepared to take more risk in the hope of building your retirement fund. But once you retire, holding onto your capital and generating an income tend to take priority over investing for growth. The key is finding the level of risk you’re comfortable with that provides the reward you need.

Savings accounts will pay you interest in one of two ways:

• Fixed rate – where the interest rate is known in advance and is paid for a fixed term
• Variable rate – where interest rates move up and down

Your choice of account – or how you split your savings between the different types of account – depends on your needs and preferences. It could also depend on your view on what might happen to interest rates in the future.

Unlike equity-linked investments, savings accounts are very low risk. Unexpected stock market falls won't result in a similar fall in the value of your savings. When you’re nearing retirement, or already retired, this kind of reassurance could be what you need.

When you’re saving for growth, you’ll not want to take any income from your savings. Instead, you’ll want to leave it to grow, and earn more interest on your interest.

Find out about RBS savings options

• Instant access savings accounts
• Fixed term savings accounts
• All our savings options including cash ISAs

Need more help?

If you'd like to talk to someone about your retirement plans, call us on 0800 051 1872 (Minicom 0800 404 6160) to make an appointment with one of our financial planning managers.

When you’re considering investing, you need to think about the longer term – usually five years or more. Longer investment terms help to flatten out the peaks and troughs of some investment asset performance, including equities.

Normally, you would expect investments in equities and corporate bonds to generate better long term returns than cash based savings, but you can't count on this.

These are the main types of investment asset:

• Cash – this pools investors' funds and places the cash with financial institutions, such as banks
• Property – investment in a portfolio of commercial properties – such as offices, shops and factories – or shares of property development companies
• Bonds – these pay fixed interest over a fixed term and are issued by companies or governments
• Equities – often called stocks and shares, these represent part ownership of companies traded on stock markets across the world
• Specialist investments – such as derivatives and hedge funds

The balance of investment assets in your portfolio will be influenced by the level of risk you’re prepared to take – and how long you have until retirement. When you’re close to retirement, you'll likely take a cautious approach. If retirement is some way off, and if you have other pension assets, you may be prepared to be more adventurous.

• More on our range of investments