The chair of the powerful Treasury Select Committee has told The Mail on Sunday that many savers are receiving such low interest rates there is almost no point in saving.
Harriett Baldwin, Conservative MP for West Worcestershire, spoke to the MoS ahead of the committee’s meeting with executives from the big four banks on Tuesday.
She said: ‘Interest rates are on the rise, yet some of our constituents are receiving such low savings rates that their money may as well be kept under the mattress. We’ll be questioning our largest banks on this, as well as on the outlook for the UK’s mortgage market and bank branch closures.’
Struggle: Top of the agenda for the Commons committee will be the poor deal savers are still getting from the big banks
Top of the agenda for the Commons committee will be the poor deal savers are still getting from the big banks despite the base rate increasing from 0.1 to 4 per cent since December 2021. Experts believe the banks have profited handsomely by widening the gap between the rates they impose on borrowers and the ones they pay savers.
Data from savings scrutineer Moneyfacts shows that at the beginning of December 2021 (when base rate stood at 0.1 per cent), the average easy access savings account was paying 0.2 per cent. But just before last week’s rate rise by the Bank of England, the average had only risen to 1.73 per cent despite base rate jumping to 3.5 per cent. Some of the equivalent rates paid by banks are as low as 0.54 per cent.
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