Mortgage rates following base rate announcement

Richard Mason, Managing Director at Moneyextra.com shares his opinion on the mortgage rates of lenders following today's base rate announcement: "The Bank of England's base rate has been kept to a staggeringly-low 0.5 per cent for the second month running, indicating how serious the chief economists are about getting our economy back on track. However, greedy lenders are still punishing customers by refusing to scale back their extortionate SVR's.

"Typically, SVR's from prime lenders are never normally higher than 1 or 2 percentage points above bank base rate, however as our research reveals the current average SVR is an incredible 4.2 per cent above base rate, with some as high as 5.99 per cent.

"Such a high-margin is unheard of and it's scandalous that lenders are allowed to continue fleecing their customers. We implore the banks to bring down their extortionate lending rates to a level that is fair and just to the consumer."