Traditionally, as soon as anyone found themselves with some money, they went to their nearest bank and opened a deposit account. Even if they only deposited a small sum, a generous return, made on the back of deposit rates sometimes exceeding 15 per cent, was assured.

Nowadays with rates on many regular deposit accounts hovering below 1 per cent, nobody is getting excited at the prospect of putting their money on deposit.

The poor return on regular deposit accounts is one likely explanation for the increasing popularity of alternative investment options like bonds, equities and property.

Banks are having to fight hard to interest savers in standard deposit accounts and a range of deposit account products have been introduced in the last year in an attempt to entice a reluctant public.

Some banks seem to have almost given up on the regular deposit accounts and now direct their marketing budgets towards the promotion of personal investment plans (PIPs) and personal equity plans (PEPs). Is the regular deposit living out its last days?

No, says a spokesman for Bank of Ireland. "While customers are looking for new deposit options, the old staple of all banks the demand deposit account is still important to our business," he says.

Certainly the minimum deposit required for some new investment products will mean that customers with small amounts will keep faith with regular demand deposit accounts for the moment.

But what about the two percentage point fall in interest rates expected to take place before the end of the year, due to EMU? Can deposit rates of 0.8 per cent fall any further?

Surely if the expected fall happens the old-style demand deposit account will be consigned to history.

This is where other types of deposit options come into play. Notice accounts (where your money is tied up for short periods, but you get better rates) are likely to become a more popular choice.

The one-month notice account (i.e. where you cannot withdraw your money without giving a month's notice) from either of the two big banks will currently give you a variable interest rate of between 4 and 5 per cent.

In other words, even if interest rates do come crashing down by two points, there will at least be some value left in such accounts. And the odds are that even if general rates do fall by this amount, deposit and associated rates will fall by less as the financial institutions compete to hold on to funds.

Some say tying up your money for one month is a price worth paying, whereas others see a rate of 4 per cent as too low when you consider that inflation is now creeping towards 3 per cent.

Of course DIRT will reduce the return you get on a regular deposit account even further. For example, AIB's Cashsave deposit account will only give you interest of 0.375 per cent, but you still have to pay the full DIRT rate, which is currently 24 per cent.

One way to reduce the DIRT rate to 20 per cent is to lodge your money in a special savings account (SSA), which normally offers better interest rates than standard deposit accounts. For example, Anglo-Irish Bank offers its SSA at a rate of 6.5 per cent. So the return is strong and the DIRT is only levied at 20 per cent.

There are drawbacks to SSAs you can only have one (unless you are married and then you can only have two joint accounts) and a month's notice (or more) is needed to make withdrawals. Some larger savers should also realise that the balance on SSAs is not allowed to exceed £50,000 and this includes interest.

The rate on some SSAs can be fixed Anglo Irish Bank for instance while other banks do not offer the facility.

No matter what deposit option you choose, the key message is that you either have to put up with low rates or having your money tied up for long periods.

What bank customers have to do and what financial institutions advise them to do is to ask themselves why they are depositing the money.

For example, if they are depositing the money for a few weeks before they spend it, then a one-month notice account is the best option. Whereas if the money is being deposited with the intention of using it to buy a car in a few years, then a fixed-rate bond, spread over a few years, might be a better option.

Another factor which should be considered is whether to have the rate on the deposit account fixed. With the expected fall in rates this is a sensible thing to do. In the case of Anglo Irish Bank, its Monthly Millennium account guarantees a rate of 5 per cent for up to two years, regardless of falls in interest rates.

However, there is often a minimum deposit required for accounts which allow you to fix the rate. For example, Irish Nationwide's Classic Quarterly account, which includes an option to fix the rate, requires a minimum deposit of £10,000, which may be beyond some savers.

All interest rates quoted in this article were correct at the time of going to press.