National Savings & Investments (NS&I), the state-owned savings bank, is reviewing its direct marketing account as part of a widescale rethink of its agency arrangements.
The pitch is being run through the Government Procurement Service, and is part of a statutory five-year review. Agencies were contacted in late November and asked to express an interest with invitations to tender likely to be despatched in the new year.
Kitcatt Nohr Digitas beat the incumbent EHS Brann (now Havas EHS) to win the direct account, while Chick Smith Trott (now The Gate) retained the ad business account. OMD won the media pitch.
A spokeswoman for NS&I confirmed that the body had begun its tender process, but could not comment any further.
Founded in 1861 as the Post Office Savings Bank, at the time it was the world’s first postal savings system. The aim of the bank was to allow ordinary workers a facility “to provide for themselves against adversity and ill-health”, and to provide the government with access to debt funding – it even funded the war effort for the First and Second World Wars.
These days it is an executive agency of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, although this week dealt a £70m blow to more than 300,000 savers after confirming the rate paid by its popular tax-free cash ISA would fall by 0.25% to 1.5% in February.
