Devils.Advocate

When does the Bank of England review the rate next ?

EddScott

This Thursday.

Its usually the first Thursday of every month. Heard its possible up to .5% reduction.

Devils.Advocate

Cheers

I googled and googled but couldn't find that

Bank Manager said today !!!

FlightMan

Don't get your hopes up. Rates will come down, mortgage rates won't! Just an even worse deal for savers.

FlightMan

Indifferent?

Cocker

iTrader: (3)

Think it will def be 0.5% although ive read in a few articles theres a small possiblility of a whole 1% cut. Luckily for me my mortgage has always dropped when the rate has - ING rocks!

Myles

iTrader: (40)

My mortgage is through Britannia, and they have been quick to pass down any rate cuts to their customers. Never had any problems with them!

fast bloke

It seems that 0.5% is a foregone conclusion, and that each day a few more boffins are forecasting 1% this week. Tracker rate mortgages will get the benefit immediately - discounted rates won't necessarily get any benefit and if you went for a fixed rate in the last few months..... oops!!

TelBoy

You're joking??? Which bank was that?

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

The tracker rates were some 2% higher than the rate we fixed at recently, so we are still quids in.

Matteeboy

HSBC and Northern Rock seem quick to cut their rates - to us savers...

TelBoy

No i mean which manager of which bank said the Bank of England MPC announcement was today? That is truly worrying....

fast bloke

Cheapest fixed rate I can get today is 4.99%. Cheapest tracker rate is...........................4.99% - same fees and benefits on both

Taking away arrangement fees, cheapest tracker rate is 5.79. Does that mean you got a 3.79 fixed rated somewhere?

EddScott

I have a lifetime tracker so mine will be going down.

FB, what was the arrangement fees on 4.99%? I do find it pointless that people chase the low rate but end up with arrangement fees far outweighing the low rate saving. Just works on peoples "buy the house no matter the cost" attitude.

Matteeboy

Nat - been considered but exchange rate fluctuations make it too risky for us.

andys

And tell the tax man you have done it so you stilll can pay your tax in interest

Devils.Advocate

the guv's just said he may have miss heard our Loyds mgr

fast bloke

2% - sometimes it can make sense to pay a bigger arrangement fee to get a lower rate if you have a big mortgage, but that only works for set fees. If you are adding 2% to a loan to get a better rate for two years it is the same as adding 1% to the rate in real terms - when you get into the 500k end of things, paying a 2 grand fee to save 0.5% on the rate would save you 200 quid a month, so you would be better off by 3k over two years

Phil

Northern Rock didn't move there rate last time

Dieseldog

... curious - by the conspiratorial wink I'm assuming you do this. Where abroad gives better rates than the UK?

If you mean 'offshore', the only reason I could see for having an offshore account was to hide the interest from the tax authorities. When they were forced to disclose last year, that disappeared, didn't it? And I've never found the rates to be any different...

Matteeboy

How about Iceland?!!
Places like NZ have high interest rates but their dollar is very unstable.

It's risky.

Dieseldog

I appreciate you may be able to find 1 or 2% more in various oddball countries (no offence to Kiwis), but I'm just surprised that people are prepared to chase a relatively small amount 'extra' considering the risk - not keeping tabs on the local news, not fully appreciating currency fluctuations, local tax systems, laws etc. etc. I mean it was bad enough with the UK based Icelandic banks, but to go to a country with no UK protection...

I get twitchy enough with a grands worth of Premium Bonds

lozgti

Lets just get this straight.B of E are meant to be independant.

Bank previously very worried about inflation galloping away and the way to stop that is increase rates.

Sky news and all the other madia (typo,but I'll leave that in ) paint picture of economic doom and gloom and 'bank must act now to save us from certain death,

Media wins and bank cuts rates.

Interest rates are blooming miniscule as it is.Why does the bank just go where it is shoved?

(BTW I know sod all about economics as you can tell)

Matteeboy

You probably know more than the "experts" wheeled out again and again by the media. The ones that keep getting it wrong. I think our 6 week old boy probably has more of an idea than most of them.

fast bloke

If the BoE only wanted to control infaltion, they could leave rates at 20% and there would be no problem. Unfortunately they also need to use them to try and maintain a stable economy. When you get a global credit crunch, this is likely to lead to recession in most countries. When you have a massive spike in oi, this is most likely to lead to inflation in most countries. If oil prices hadn't dropped, we would have had high inflation along with recession, which is virtually incurable without outside assistance. Now that oil prices have dropped, the liklehood is that we wil have deflation by next August, so the BoE need to cut rates to lessen the recession and hopefully avoid deflation (although I like the sound of deflation - stuff getting cheaper sounds OK )

ritchie21

I'd check because we got a letter about a week later from Northern Rock informing us of a cut in our mortgage because of the drop in interest rate.