00:00 The Financial Conduct Authority has criticised high street banks, including Lloyds, NatWest,
00:04 Barclays and HSBC, for not passing on higher interest rates to its customers and the UK's
00:10 top banks have been warned that they will need to justify their reasoning for this after
00:14 it was found some savings accounts still remain below 2%.
00:18 A 14-point plan has now been introduced by the FCA in order to push banks to improve
00:22 their savings interest rates.
00:24 Those banks with the lowest savings rates will have to justify this by the end of August,
00:29 with those failing to do so facing action, including fines.
00:32 Analysis by the Watchdog found that nine of the biggest banks in the country only passed
00:37 on around 28% of interest rate rises to easy access savings accounts from January 2022
00:44 to May 2023.
00:46 This meant that while the Bank of England interest rate rose from 0.25% to 4.5%, interest
00:53 rates on these accounts rose on average from 0.07% to only 1.25%.
Comments