In Short

A roundup of today's other personal finance stories in brief:

Making money on falling house prices

A new financial spread betting product allows people to place their bets on the future direction of the Irish property market. Financial spread betting company Delta Index has opened a property market index, challenging property experts to back their judgment on Irish house prices without buying or selling any property.

"With house prices appearing to ease, this is one of the few ways of making money from a fall in the property market," said Delta Index's joint managing director Conor O'Neill.

Investors can bet up to €10 per point that Irish house prices will rise or fall.

Broadening lingua franca of pensions

The Pensions Board has made the pensions calculator on its website multi-lingual, so that workers based on Ireland who speak Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish, Polish and Russian can work out how much they should be contributing to a pension.

The calculator allows people to estimate the amount of money, net of tax, they would need to contribute to a pension based on age and salary to fund an adequate income in retirement. The calculator is available in Irish.

Bond issued at rate of 4.5%

Northern Rock has launched a new issue of its Direct Saver fixed rate bond, offering a rate of 4.5 per cent per annum on new bonds opened between now and May 15th. The bond includes a guaranteed return on balances from €1,000. Additional deposits of €1,000 can be made during the offer period up to a maximum of €3 million per accountholder. Funds can be withdrawn during the fixed-rate period, with a charge of 60 days' gross interest applying to the amount withdrawn.

AIB increases saving rate

AIB has increased the interest rate on its regular savings account to 7.1 per cent. The account, which is open to people saving between €10 and €300 a month, has the leading interest rate in the regular savings market. Anglo Irish Bank pays a rate of 7 per cent on savings of €100-€1,000 a month, while Halifax pays 7 per cent for monthly savings of €10-€750. The interest paid on deposit and regular savings accounts have gone up over the past 14 months in tandem with the European Central Bank interest rate hikes.