Santander to hike SVR mortgage rate to 4.74%

Is Santanders 4.74% SVR the highest in the market? I notice C&G Mortgages cap their SVR to 2% above BoE rate ie 2.5% which is a lot fairer. Santander are treating their 'locked in' borrowers as cash cows and profiteering big time. The Government harps on about BoE rate being lowest ever etc at 0.5% but this is totally misleading as it has absolutely no correlation to mortgage lending rates.

Aitken B Why don't you call the BOE and ask them what the base rate is for and whether anybody (yes anybody) can borrow at that rate? the answer will be that the BOE rate is a deposit rate - not a borrowing rate. The effects it has on the market are many and various, but its been clear for years that there is no direct linkage between the BOE rate and mortgage rates. The gap now is not even the widest its been. As a saver Santander are paying me 3.0% on instant access funds. The rate they can borrow in the market for 6 month and 1 year money is probably similar. Why then do you think that Santander, or any other bank should offer an SVR of 4.5% or less? The government and BOE are doing all they can to keep rates low so as to help kick start the economy. However under the last government, government debt rose from circa 30% of GDP in 2003 to circa 70% (and rising) of GDP by the time they left office. Why did they borrow so much if times were so good and the cycle of boom and bust had been broken as claimed by that idiot Gordon Brown? And it wasn't just the financial crisis - the spending splurge was in train long before. And I'll be generous and say I don't blame Labour for not seeing the particular financial crises that hit in 2007 coming - few did - but a prudent government would not have bet the countries wealth on the same benign economic conditions that had existed from 1997 continuing indefinitely. Some sort of bust would inevitably come at some point and they were not prepared for it. As it is, The governments normal room to borrow to inflate the economy in times of recession has been scuppered by the previous government who instead of paying down debt in the so called good times, instead wasted the opportunity and led us to to the present crisis. Much the same applies to other governments around the world and anybody who thinks we can solve our current debt laden problems by spending even more cash we don't have is an economic imbecile - step forward Ed Balls! His conversion to Keynesian economics recently is welcome - he's got the argument that is a good idea for governments to boost spending if they can to counter a recession - unfortunately his conversion didn't come in office when paying down debt as Keynes would have called for wasn't in the forefront of his mind. Debt needs to be repaid by individuals and governments before confidence can be restored. When the confidence returns things will get better. We can all call for a quick fix but this time it really isn't available.

One really has to wonder about the purpose of the BoE base rate. It has been at its present level for some time now yet the banks, Santander in this case, seem to do whatever they like regardless of the BoE rate or anything else for that matter. Perhaps as LIBOR is now under some temporary scrutiny it is a little less easy to fleece their victims, ooops sorry, customers so until they find another subterfuge behind which to hide they must just blame other people not willing to give them "free" use of their money so they can mauntain their profits and bonuses. Still waiting for LibCon to actually [B][I]do [/B][/I] something to control these cowboys. BTW I heard a little whisper that Santander were about to take over RBOS. Anyone else heard this?