If you have €23K or more you can still do better by splitting it between higher interest accounts such as the First Active E-Saver (5.22%) and the AIB Online 7 day account (5%)
€150 per year better, in fact.
People should be voting with their feet (and their money) - inertia is the banks' best friend.
Was thinking the exact same thing as you John.
Another interesting note is that you can still earn a tiny bit more (.03%: 4.33% versus 4.3%) on savings of 1 million EUR with FA than with Rabo. So unless your extremely loaded with cash and want to keep it in the one place, Rabo wouldn't be the first port of call. FA also has the advantage of people staying with them due to the 5.22% on the first 15K.
Logic also dictates to spread out savings as:
-Take advantage of banded rates to max returns
-By spreading it out between different banks you minimise risk(there's a 20K upper limit on the deposit protection scheme I believe?... so more accounts means more protection for the sum total of your savings)
Yep so the only conclusion one can draw is that Rabo is heavily relying on customer inertia.
I think the general feeling on the forum is one of disappointment with Rabo. FA and even AIB have given experienced savers pause for thought on Rabo, and there's even some 4.5% accounts out there(granted not as flexible, though for the sums Rabo is aiming at if you're loaded by that much.....).
Since Rabo is a virtual bank you'd expect it to offer more attractive rates than brick and mortar banks.. hence the disappointment.
To Rabo's credit they are one of the easiest banks to get up and running with and brought along innovative security and currently have an acceptable interest rate, but for the experienced saver they have probably moved from a primary to tertiary place for deposits.