UK
Prime minister Gordon Brown said today banks have the responsibility of passing on Bank of England (BoE) rate cuts to the wider public.
‘Society and banks have a duty to take that (the BoE’s quarter point rate cut to 5.50 pct last month) into account,’ he told reporters.
For his part, Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said: ‘I would hope that if interest rate cuts continue to come down, they will be passed on to mortgage payers.’
The comments come amid reports that several major UK mortgage lenders have failed to pass on the BoE rate cut in December, making the central bank’s task of stemming sliding growth in the economy even harder 500 fast cash.
Eighteen of the country’s 103 mortgage lenders have not reduced the cost of borrowing since the BoE cut rates a quarter point on Dec 6 last year, and 16 others have brought down rates by less than 0.25 pct, the newspaper said.
The paper said Skipton, the UK’s 6th largest building society, and Principality are among those who have not yet lower borrowing costs at all.
Meanwhile, Alliance & Leicester, Northern Rock and Citigroup’s Egg are some of the major players to have trimmed borrowing costs by less than 0.25 points.
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Filed under: News, banks, finance, mortgage, uk by Finance Boss