Economy
UK banks asked by lawmakers if they’re ‘exploiting’ savers with low rates
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Pound Sterling notes and change are seen inside a cash resgister in a coffee shop in Manchester, Britain, Septem,ber 21, 2018. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo
By Iain Withers
LONDON (Reuters) -British banks faced fresh criticism on Monday for the savings rates they offer to cash-strapped customers, in the latest intervention by parliament’s influential Treasury Select Committee.
The committee said it had written to the country’s “Big Four” banks, Barclays (LON:), HSBC, Lloyds (LON:) and NatWest, asking if they believed their savings rates provided “fair value” and if customer inertia – or reluctance to change accounts – was being exploited.
“With interest rates on the rise and our constituents feeling squeezed by rising prices, it is only right that the UK’s biggest banks step up their measly easy-access savings rates,” Harriett Baldwin, chair of the committee, said in a statement. “The time for action is now.”
British banks have come under pressure from lawmakers and consumer campaigners for not passing on the extent of higher Bank of England rates to savings customers, despite the benchmark rate ratcheting up to 5% – the highest since 2008.
The Treasury committee had on June 8 criticised easy-access savings rates of between 0.7% and 1.35% at a time when the central bank had raised the base rate to 4.5%.
Finance minister Jeremy Hunt also said last week banks were too slow to pass on increases in central bank rates to savers and that the problem needed to be resolved.
Baldwin added she believed banks were failing in their “social duty” to encourage customers to save.
The four banks did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Top executives from the banks were grilled by the Treasury committee on savings rates during a session in February.
The banks have previously argued they are increasing savings rates, particularly for fixed-term savings products, and were offering a variety of support to customers struggling in the cost of living crisis.
The Treasury committee said it had also written to regulator the Financial Conduct Authority asking if banks had responded to the pressure applied on them and what enforcement action could be taken under a “consumer duty” coming into force later this month.
The regulator was not immediately available for comment.
© Reuters. Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina attends a news conference in Moscow, Russia June 14, 2019. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov/File Photo
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s central bank will need two to three months to make sure that inflation is steadily declining before taking any decision on interest rate cuts, the bank’s governor Elvira Nabiullina told RBC media on Sunday.
The central bank raised its key interest rate by 100 basis points to 16% earlier in December, hiking for the fifth consecutive meeting in response to stubborn inflation, and suggested that its tightening cycle was nearly over.
Nabiullina said it was not yet clear when exactly the regulator would start cutting rates, however.
“We really need to make sure that inflation is steadily decreasing, that these are not one-off factors that can affect the rate of price growth in a particular month,” she said.
Nabiullina said the bank was taking into account a wide range of indicators but primarily those that “characterize the stability of inflation”.
“This will take two or three months or more – it depends on how much the wide range of indicators that characterize sustainable inflation declines,” she said.
The bank will next convene to set its benchmark rate on Feb. 16.
The governor also said the bank should have started monetary policy tightening earlier than in July, when it embarked on the rate-hiking cycle.
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Workers walk past an under-construction area with completed office towers in the background, in Shenzhen’s Qianhai new district, Guangdong province, China August 25, 2023. REUTERS/David Kirton/File Photo
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s top planning body said on Saturday it had identified a second batch of public investment projects, including flood control and disaster relief programmes, under a bond issuance and investment plan announced in October to boost the economy.
With the latest tranche, China has now earmarked more than 800 billion yuan of its 1 trillion yuan ($140 billion) in additional government bond issuance in the fourth quarter, as it focuses on fiscal steps to shore up the flagging economy.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a statement on Saturday it had identified 9,600 projects with planned investment of more than 560 billion yuan.
China’s economy, the world’s second largest, is struggling to regain its footing post-COVID-19 as policymakers grapple with tepid consumer demand, weak exports, falling foreign investment and a deepening real estate crisis.
The 1 trillion yuan in additional bond issuance will widen China’s 2023 budget deficit ratio to around 3.8 percent from 3 percent, the state-run Xinhua news agency has said.
“Construction of the projects will improve China’s flood control system, emergency response mechanism and disaster relief capabilities, and better protect people’s lives and property, so it is very significant,” the NDRC said.
The agency said it will coordinate with other government bodies to make sure that funds are allocated speedily for investment and that high standards of quality are maintained in project construction.
($1 = 7.1315 renminbi)
© Reuters. Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina attends a news conference in Moscow, Russia June 14, 2019. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov/File Photo
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s central bank will need two to three months to make sure that inflation is steadily declining before taking any decision on interest rate cuts, the bank’s governor Elvira Nabiullina told RBC media on Sunday.
The central bank raised its key interest rate by 100 basis points to 16% earlier in December, hiking for the fifth consecutive meeting in response to stubborn inflation, and suggested that its tightening cycle was nearly over.
Nabiullina said it was not yet clear when exactly the regulator would start cutting rates, however.
“We really need to make sure that inflation is steadily decreasing, that these are not one-off factors that can affect the rate of price growth in a particular month,” she said.
Nabiullina said the bank was taking into account a wide range of indicators but primarily those that “characterize the stability of inflation”.
“This will take two or three months or more – it depends on how much the wide range of indicators that characterize sustainable inflation declines,” she said.
The bank will next convene to set its benchmark rate on Feb. 16.
The governor also said the bank should have started monetary policy tightening earlier than in July, when it embarked on the rate-hiking cycle.
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