If you have a mortgage and you want something else to worry about, forget the Bank of England base rate. Lenders’s standard variable rates are already 3.5%. Hardly the reflection of our (still unchanged) record low interest rates. The key is what they think they can get away with and how much they’re forced to compete for business. To take a random example, the Halifax’s SVR is 3.59%, yet it’s paying interest of 0.01% on its savings accounts. NatWest/Barclays/HSBC, the same. Some tidy little banker’s bonuses tucked away there, I’d say.
Should Financial Education be as important as Sex Education?
We’ve talked before about the ‘Hotel des Parents’, where many are having stay well into their thirties, until incomes finally catch up with house prices and they can step onto the ladder and become first-time buyers.
