Savings account campaigners are imploring the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee to raise the UK base interest rate up from its historic 0.5 per cent low.
The nine MPC members have recently received letters from campaign group Save Our Savers in order to draw the £50 billion loss savers have had to suffer through over the past 12 months thanks to abysmal savings rates. Once again the nine MPC members – Martin Weale, Adam Posen, avid Miles, Paul Fisher, Spencer Dale, Ben Broadbent, Paul Tucker, Charles Bean, and Sir Mervyn King – have the fate of British savers in the palms of their hands as they reviewed the economic landscape.
Languishing at 0.5 per cent since March of 2009, the base rate’s continued historic low is likely to continue for yet another month, according to personal and business bank account experts in the UK. However, Save Or Savers has pointed out the foolishness on the part of the BoE to persist in transferring wealth to borrowers from savers while UK inflation runs at record highs.
In a ploy to stimulate the economy, the modest base rate has made it quite affordable to borrow at the expense of the nation’s savings account rates. In the Save Our Savers letter, both campaigner spokesmen, Simon Rose and Jason Riddle, declared that the UK is in the grips of a recession made worse by the highest consumer debt levels ever experienced and decried the inaction of the MPC, stating that their reticence to act has had an undermining effect on savings rates.
According to National Savings & Investments, the savings arm of the Government, an eye-watering six million Brits have been left on the razor’s edge, without even a single pound put away to safeguard against sudden jumps in living costs or redundancy.