Banking giants were shamed into slashing their mortgage rates yesterday following a direct order from the Prime Minister.
The move will be cheered by more than a million homeowners whose monthly bills will drop by around £135 on an average £150,000 loan, and many more should benefit soon. It comes after banking chiefs were summoned to an emergency meeting at the Treasury yesterday morning and read the riot act.
On Thursday, the Bank of England axed rates by 1.5 points to 3 per cent, the lowest since 1955 and the biggest cut for nearly 30 years.
But most of the big banks totally ignored the central bank's extraordinary move.
To make matters worse, they rushed to pull their cheapest tracker mortgage deals, a major blow for homeowners and first-time buyers trying to save money.
The culprits which scrapped trackers included the three - Lloyds TSB, HBOS, owner of Halifax, and Royal Bank of Scotland, owner of NatWest - which are getting a £37billion taxpayer bail-out.