The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee has voted to keep interest rates at their record low of 0.5 per cent for another month.
The base rate was cut in March 2009 and has remained there ever since. The decision was also made to keep the quantitative easing programme at £200 billion, despite growing pressure to extend it in a bid to give the economy a cash boost.
The news follows a recent survey from Moneysupermarket.com, which found that 41 per cent of the 7,206 people polled would like to see the base rate rise in order to boost the returns on their savings.
Meanwhile, NS&I announced the withdrawal of their inflation linked bonds this week, hitting savers with a ‘double whammy’ according to Dr Ros Altmann, director general at Saga, who believes that the Government should be doing more to help savers – particularly elderly savers.
“If a rise in interest rates is not to happen, we need to come up with some alternative options to help people weather the storm and make the most of this bad situation,” she said.
