The digital bank described the account as ‘next generation’ and said it will help young savers level-up their post pandemic finances.

Smart Saver offers a basic interest rate of 0.72% for easy access. This rate beats other easy access accounts currently on the market.

Savers can also ‘boost’ the interest rate they receive by locking their money away for longer with a notice functionality.

Users can set up a ‘pot’ paying 0.75% interest and give seven days’ notice of withdrawals; a pot with 31 days’ notice paying 0.85% interest; and a pot with 95 days’ notice paying 1.05%.

These rates are all currently the best paying on the market for their respective notice periods.

Zopa says it introduced the ‘booster’ feature to address unmet user needs identified in Zopa research. It found that while eight out of 10 adults under 30 want to organise their savings based on what they’re saving towards, unlike current accounts, most savings accounts do not have a ‘pot’ functionality.

A similarly large majority wanted to create barriers and limitations on accessing portions of their savings to stop themselves dipping into savings for spending.

Merve Ferrero, chief strategy officer at Zopa, said: “The Zopa Smart Saver combines the best of both banking and fintech when it comes to helping customers save money. By building on the foundations of the easy access account but evolving it, Zopa offers a higher interest rate in a sustainable manner. At the same time, it gives users control over how and when they access their money based on their goals.

“And we’re only getting started. Over the next 12 months we plan on doubling our savings portfolio to £2bn while continuing to find innovative ways to help our customers grow their savings”.

The Zopa “Smart Saver” is the bank’s second savings product. It follows the launch of the Zopa Fixed Rate Savings account  in August 2020. Zopa says the account massed £1bn in customer savings in only 18 months, topping the savings tables 15 times.

Since becoming a bank in 2020, Zopa has also launched a credit card, energy switching and broadband switching. It closed its peer-to-peer operations at the start of this year.