I’ve found a trick to get a juicy 7 pc interest on my savings – far more than you can get with even the most generous traditional current account.

The rates I’m getting even beat the average growth of the UK stock market – except unlike with investing, there is no danger that I will lose any of my money.

It takes some setting up, and you can only save a little over £1,000 a month to get a 7pc rate.

But for the chance to earn £557.75 in interest in just a year using this technique, I think it’s worth the trouble.

Here how it works.

A number of high street banks, listed below, offer so-called ‘regular saver’ accounts to lure in new customers.

These are savings accounts that you only gain access to as a current account holder. Their rates look tantalising – around 7 or even 8 pc – but they’re restrictive.

They have another limitation – they only let you save £200 to £300 a month into them to benefit from the top rate.

I’ve found a trick to get a juicy 7 pc interest on my savings. The rates I’m getting even beat the average growth of the UK stock market, writes Rosie Murray-West

However, if you want to save more than this, there is no reason why you can’t spread your monthly savings between five different regular savers. That could allow you to put away a total of £1,300 a month - £15,600 a year – with an average interest rate of 7.36 pc.

Step 1: Open five winning accounts

To benefit fully, you will need to hold a current account with each bank for which you want to take advantage of their regular saver.

The five I would suggest are Lloyds, Santander, Zopa, First Direct and the Co-op Bank. Lloyds and Santander pay 8 pc interest each and the other three pay 7 pc.

In the case of Lloyds, the 8pc deal is also offered by its sister brands Halifax and Royal Bank of Scotland. All of these accounts can be opened online and there are often extra cash deals for opening them. For example, if you open a First Direct account through the website TopCashback, you can earn £20.

Each bank offers a free account, so you don’t have to pay to open them, and they do not stipulate that you must use them as your main account so you can take advantage of them simply for the regular saver and leave the current accounts dormant.

Opening a current account is straightforward. You can choose to switch your existing one, which takes seven working days and is entirely managed by your new provider.

Alternatively, you can open one and leave your existing one unaffected, although this can in some cases affect your credit score in the short term if you open a lot at once, so don’t do this if you’re about to apply for a mortgage or other large loan.

Step 2: Set up five standing orders

Each regular saver account has its own limit on the amount you can save each month. Put in too much and your transaction might get blocked or returned, so make sure you understand the restrictions.

First Direct and Zopa allow you to save £300 a month in your account, while for the Co-op and Lloyds it is £250 and for Santander just £200.

The total you can save each month into these five top savers is £1,300. Can’t save the full amount? Prioritise the two 8pc accounts to get the highest returns over the year. Have even more money? There are more regular savers available from banks at rates below 7pc that are still impressive if you want to put more money in cash. For example, Nationwide has a regular saver at 6.5 pc for current account customers, while Hanley Building Society’s 6.5 pc saver is open to all.

The easiest way to fund four out of five of these accounts is a standing order from your main current account on the first day of each month. The exception is the First Direct account, which is set up to pull money straight from a First Direct current account straight into your Regular Saver, so set up a standing order into the First Direct current account instead.

You can set up standing orders through your online banking app or website, by stating the account number and sort code as well as the amount you wish to transfer every month.

Step 3: Wait for the interest to accumulate

As soon as your money hits the savings accounts it will be earning these top rates. The Zopa account has to be renewed after six months, which means manually logging in to open a new one at the same rate, so set a diary reminder to do this. All accounts except the First Direct account allow withdrawals whenever you like.

After a full year, if you’ve funded all of these accounts to the max and renewed the Zopa one you’ll have a total of £16,157.75 and have made £557.75 in interest.

The benefit of the Regular Saver though is that it is completely risk-free, and you can get your money out when you need it

If you’re a basic rate taxpayer and you earn no other interest outside of an Individual Savings Account (Isa) you won’t pay any tax on this as it will be more than covered by your £1,000 personal savings allowance.

If you are a higher rate taxpayer, you’ll pay £23.10 in tax as you only have a £500 allowance for interest from savings, but you’ll still make a total of £534.65 if you’ve funded all of the accounts. The tax bill will usually be reported to HMRC automatically and your tax code will be adjusted to take account of it.

Step 4: Reallocate your cash

One of the biggest catches with regular savers is that your rate drops dramatically after a year (or six months for Zopa) so make a diary note to move your new savings pot.

The Lloyds saver drops down to around 1.3 pc, the Co-op to 1.7 pc, First Direct to 1.75 pc, Santander to around 3 pc and Zopa to 3.4 pc.

This is the time to move your money into a higher-paying account. An Isa is ideal, as you’ll pay no tax on the pot you’ve built up. From April next year under 65s will be able to put £12,000 a year into a cash Isa and £8,000 into stocks and shares each tax year, while those over 65 can pay the full £20,000 into a cash Isa. At present you can get a 4.7 pc rate on an easy access Isa with Trading 212 or Moneybox, so your full pot of £16,157.75 would make a further £759.41 in interest over a year if that rate stayed the same.

Step 5: Start again with Regular Savers

Most banks only allow you to have one regular saver at a time, but once you’ve closed these ones there is nothing to stop you opening a new one. Make sure you check that there aren’t better offers with other banks, as these types of account change all the time.

So will this really beat the stock market?

Nobody knows whether, in any given year, the stock market will return more or less than 7.36 pc, which is the average interest rate you’ll get on your savings using this strategy.

Over its 42-year-history, the average compound annual growth rate of the FTSE 100 has been approximately 5.8 pc, below the rate you’ll get on your regular savings. If you include reinvestment of dividends though, the average growth has beaten this cash rate at around 7.8 pc.

The benefit of the Regular Saver though is that it is completely risk-free, and you can get your money out when you need it, so it is a strategy that works for both the long and the short term. It is also fee-free, whereas you’ll usually be charged to invest, which will eat into your returns.

On the other hand, with an Isa there is no tax to pay from the start and you don’t need to open current accounts to use them.