At the beginning of the month, RCI led the fixed rate best buy tables in two categories:

• One-year fixed rate bond: paid 4.6% AER/gross on a minimum £1,000 deposit.
• Two-year fixed rate bond: paid 4.85% AER/gross on a minimum £1,000 deposit.

It was inundated with enquiries and applications after getting a mention on TV by Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert because of its market-leading rate.

RCI said it experienced high volumes of calls from new customers, with wait times longer than usual.

And now, it confirmed that more than 25,000 households have opened one of the accounts, but after two weeks, it is taking them off sale.

A statement on Twitter, read: “After two weeks of offering some of the highest paying fixed term accounts in the market, we’re now taking them off sale so that we can quickly get our prized customer service standards back up to its usual high level.

“At a time when household finances are stretched, we are heartened that over the past two weeks we’ve been able to open accounts for over 25,000 households who will benefit from a competitive rate on their savings for years to come.”

The current top saver revealed

If you’re looking to house your cash in a one-year bond, the current top-payer is from Smart Save, offering 4.46% AER/gross, but you’ll need a hefty £10,000 minimum balance to open it online. Kent Reliance pays 4.45% AER/gross on £1,000 plus.

Last week, experts predicted that the rates on fixed bonds would start to come down as they had been “overegged” by the market.

And this week that proved true as fixed rate bonds started to pull back as inflation’s leapt to a 40-year high of 11.1%.