Good news for savers with large deposits - the Government ups the guarantee from £50,000 to £85,000 (but always check to see if your bank/building society is covered by the one banking licence if you use more than one financial institution).

This is how I think the savings market will shape up:

• The global economy is stuck in one hell of a rut and it's interesting to see that wherever you look, DEBT IS THE FOCUS and it's going to remain the focus for 2013
  
  
• This means that official interest rates have zero chance of rising and so I think there's little to predict apart from zombie savings accounts, ie 2% give or take 0.25% all year
  
  
• I wish I could be more optimistic but we have career politicians in charge (all around the world) of whom 95% are either incompetent or deeply mendacious (the good ones are sadly always pushed to the sidelines with an 'extremist' label attached)
  
  
• The mendacious politicians are the worst because they know full well what's going on yet know that a) admitting the truth, and b) doing something about it will result in them being thrown out of office. Remember, they're career politicians
  
  
• The only thing I can advise is to make sure your money is getting the best possible rate alongside cutting down (if possible) on your spending
  
  
• There is only one way out of this mess and that's to do the economic 'hard thing' but saying it and doing it are very very different
  
  
• The hard thing means a massive contraction in GDP and a very nasty, but short term recession (under 12 months). But the career politicians don't do pain for the reasons discussed above

Summary

2013 is all about zombie banks, zombie interest rates and zombie savings accounts.

Once again, I wish I could be more optimistic but 4-5 years into the mess, with no sign of any recovery built on firm foundations, it's very hard to be.