Rate hold ‘will cost Brits millions’
The Bank of England’s decision to hold the base rate of interest at 5.5 per cent will cost British consumers millions of pounds of the course of the next month, it has been claimed.
John Charcol has asserted that homeowners around the country who have a standard variable rate mortgage deal will lose out to the tune of over £100 million per month until the rate is cut.
However, experts at the company suggest that for anyone remortgaging, debt management worries could best be alleviated by opting for a base rate tracker deal.
“The fact that the monetary policy committee was unanimous in its decision to cut the bank rate by 0.25 per cent last month, after seriously considering a 0.5 per cent cut, was a strong early indicator that another cut this month was on the cards,” said John Charcol’s Ray Boulger.
“Add to that various negative economic statistics over the last month plus an increasingly worrying economic outlook later in the year and it is easy to see why a 0.25 per cent cut today would have been justified.”
A report featured in the Independent earlier this week claimed that banks in the UK are squeezing their customers more than ever before in an effort to recoup losses brought on by the so-called credit crunch.
