A round-up of today's other news stories in brief

Self-cover motor policy attracts 1,000

Over a thousand drivers have opted to buy a specialist type of motor policy in which they cover a greater proportion of any claims themselves.

XS Direct, which sells insurance policies aimed at drivers who have lost their no-claims bonus, attracted the thousand-plus customers in its first four months of business.

The company charges an excess of €4,000 to male drivers and €2,000 to females, meaning they cannot claim for amounts lower than these sums. But the premiums are lower than those charged by mainstream insurers to certain drivers that are deemed to be high risk.

XS Direct's average premiums are €1,200 for males and €900 for females and the company estimates that its customers have saved at least €500 on their premiums by opting for its product.

Four out of five customers who have signed up have a no-claims bonus for less than two years due to a recent claim or because they have emigrated here.

Some 16 per cent of customers are non-nationals, many of whom are over 25 years old with good driving records, XS Direct said, but struggle to find competitive insurance quotes.

Almost three-quarters of customers are male and around two-thirds drive cars with 1.8 litre engines or higher.

Permanent TSB reels in customers

Permanent TSB opened 67,000 new current accounts in 2005, a rate of 1,250 a week, following the promotion of its free transaction current account.

Around 18,500 of the account openings were upgrades from an older type of Permanent TSB account, meaning the bank added 48,500 new customers to its books.

Some 45 per cent of these new customers switched to Permanent TSB from AIB, while 37 per cent came from Bank of Ireland, according to Permanent TSB's analysis. A further 8 per cent switched from Ulster Bank, while 1 per cent came from NIB.

Around a third of the switchers also decided to move one or more other products to the bank when they switched.

Permanent TSB also announced earlier this week that it will be removing the €30,000 income restriction for applicants to its Ice credit card, which has the best interest rate on purchases in the country at 9.9 per cent.

Life assurance firms target SSIAs

Life assurance companies should now be competing with each other to persuade holders of Special Savings Incentive Accounts (SSIAs) to reinvest their funds into pensions, according to the Professional Insurance Brokers Association (Piba).

Piba's chief executive Diarmuid Kelly said life assurance companies should design innovative products to capture some of the €16 billion in SSIA funds that will be released over the next two years.

Mr Kelly also called on the Government to introduce tax incentives to make these products more attractive.

He said much thought needed to go into the design of the products, which would have to be easily understood by the public.

Anglo Irish pays more to savers

Anglo Irish Bank has become the latest financial institution to increase the rate of interest it pays to savers following the European Central Bank's decision to raise rates at the start of December.

Anglo Irish Bank is now paying a compound annual rate (CAR) of 3 per cent gross to all holders of its 30-day notice deposit account, which has a minimum deposit of €1,000.

However, the rate still lags behind those offered by AIB Bank, Northern Rock and Rabobank Direct, which all offer higher rates on demand. Anglo Irish Bank's demand account pays a rate of 2.35 per cent CAR.