British regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said on Thursday that banks need to ensure they are providing value to savers, but said it was not up to the regulator to dictate pricing.
Politicians and consumer campaigners have been heaping pressure on British lenders to raise rates for savers as fast as they have hiked rates on mortgages, amid an intensifiying cost of living crisis that is particularly hurting poorer households.
The FCA said it was scrutinising the savings market, but believed savers were already getting a fair deal across the products offered by lenders.
“I think savers are getting value,” Sheldon Mills, FCA executive director for competition, said in a broadcast pooled interview.
“It’s not for me to set rates for banks,” Mills said after a meeting with nine lenders, including Britain’s ‘Big Four’ banks – Barcalys (BARC.L), HSBC (HSBA.L), Lloyds (LLOY.L) and NatWest (NWG.L).
Mills said that a forthcoming FCA report on savings due at the end of July would address data privacy restrictions that constrained how banks can communicate with customers on rates.