Bank of Ireland responded this week by offering students 700 free text messages. Bank of Ireland backs up its offer with research that says 90% of students have a pay as you go phone, and pay on average 41 per month on top-ups, representing more than 6% of their overall spend.

It will come as no surprise to despairing parents that students are spending nearly half of everything they earn on "socialising", by which we're pretty sure they don't mean ballroom dancing.

At least drinks companies will be pleased to hear about banks offering easy credit terms for students.

But BoI and other banks claim that, far from being credit abusers, more than half of students with a credit card pay off the full balance at the end of each month.

RABOBANK INCREASES ITS SAVINGS RATE Starting tomorrow, savers with RaboDirect will see an increase in the annual rate paid on their savings from 3.5% to 3.6%, in a further push by the Netherlands-based bank to attract Irish custom at a time when rising interest rates are generally quicker to show up in mortgages than savings.

It wasn't enough to humiliate us 4-0 at Lansdowne Road on Wednesday? The Dutch have to shame our local banks as well?

LABOURING ILLUSIONS ON ILLNESS PROTECTION A startling number of employees are under the impression that their company would protect their income indefinitely in the event of a long illness.

A survey conducted for Friends First, which sells income protection insurance, claims that nearly one-third of workers (29%) believe their employment contract guarantees them continued income in the event of an extended illness.

The insurer points out that with the rapid growth in salaries and escalating expectations in Irish lifestyles in the last few years, a bad back or psychiatric illness could cause a sharp shock to two-income families . . . and that disability benefits offered by the state have not kept pace.

HOW TO HAVE A LOOK AT DRIVE-BY SAVINGS ARE YOU about to pay more than you have to in order to get behind the wheel of your next car?

That's a question the Financial Regulator would like you to have a good think about before signing on the line that is dotted.

The regulator's superb survey of 10 leading lenders to car buyers reveals that you could save up to 1,000 by checking around to make sure you're with the right institution.

In one example given by the regulator, someone trading up to a 35,000 2006 Land Rover Freelander 4x4 with a trade-in on her old car for 3,000 plus 10,000 of her SSIA money will need to arrange for 22,000 in finance.

Paid back over five years, the survey shows, the cost of that finance ranges from 4,290 to 5,300 . . . suggesting a potentially tidy sum of more than 1,000.

More on this and other surveys on www. itsyourmoney. ie.

GENTLEMEN PREFER BONDS BONDS and their fixed returns are starting to look pretty good to fund managers, according to the August survey of global fund managers by financial management and advisory company Merrill Lynch.

Just over 35% of the boys in red braces felt that bond markets were overvalued at the moment. But that's down dramatically from more than 53% in May.

Merrill Lynch consultant David Bowers outlined what's at stake when markets look to resume from the summer doldrums in a week or two.

"The big call this autumn is shaping up to be: will this liquidity be directed back into equities or could it head for the bond market instead?"

So why should you care about this? Well, if, having sold in May, the smart money doesn't come back into stocks, then the optimistic scenarios about equity-based SSIAs making up for lost time seem even less likely. Not to mention how your pension fund might perform over the next year or so.