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And surely any decision to move should be based on what the rates actually are, not on by how much they have risen.
Originally posted by Reed_Richards
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True. Pick a financial institution and stay with it if it suits you to do so, or move if it suits you to do so. It doesn't really matter what the most recent change to that financial institution was; there may be another one within a year anyway, and you don't know if they will blindly follow that one or not, so what matters is the service they offer and the rates they offer
Certainly in 2009 when the base rate fell to 0.5%, people like the OP wouldn't have been admonishing the [insert financial institution of choice] for failing to instantly "pass on" the full extent of the base rate change on their savings account. They were quite happy for their bank or building society to be aware of what their competition were doing and set their rates at levels which were judged to best meet the objectives of attracting sufficient deposits to continue to operate, and sufficient profit margin to build reserves to meet their business risk and regulatory requirements.
I say "quite happy" - obviously they don't want financial institutions to make profits or grow their business in case it makes them 'lose touch' with customers, and they would still be moaning that the interest rates should be higher... but what I mean is they were happy for the rates not to instantly plummet to the floor to match the base rate. Yet now people think it's outrageous if savings rates don't match base rates tick for tick.
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...while its tracker mortgage customers will see a 0.25% rise in their payments...
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because those tracker mortgage customers explicitly bought a financial product that tracks the base rate up and down, and it just went up by 0.25%...
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many of its savers will see only a 0.1% increase in rates.
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because the saving rates offered on their accounts are variable and can be changed from time to time at such times and amounts the financial institution would like to change them, with regard to factors such as profitability and whatever rival providers choose to offer.
Personally, my Nationwide mortgage rate is fixed for several more years, while only one of my savings accounts (not a Nationwide one) is fixed. I'll deposit my spare money wherever I like, based on rates available and other factors; that's the same situation 'post base rate rise' as it was at any point in the past.