Lenders interest rates

Well, it seems that most lenders are doing the right thing on interest rates – 4.99% seems to be ‘about right’.

Abbey have influenced this, although we are all forgetting that they put their rates up by 0.5% earlier this week and also didn’t pass on the earlier 0.5% drop, so they had 1% in hand – obviously OK for them to drop the ‘full 1.5% to be fair to their customer’ Forgive me if I seem a bit cynical.

Looking back through by business register, I am pleased that many customers have tracker products, although if you look on a longer view I don’t think fixed rates will be all bad – there are going to be problems after the recession is averted over and they may be well be cured with higher interest rates.

And, in other news – I had a letter today from one of my credit cards saying they were going to put my interest rate up to something ridiculous. I was annoyed and threw away the letter. I then got very annoyed and got the letter to phone them and winge – I read the letter while I was on hold, it turns out that they were putting the interest rate wup within the terms of clause such and such and carried on like so for several paragraphs.

Tucked away in the final paragraph – “if you do not consent to this, please phone us within 30 days”.

Hmmm – wonder how many more of those letters I’ve missed over the years…