But what about your home loan?

Britain's biggest mortgage lenders yesterday declined to pass on the full 0.25 base rate cut to borrowers, prompting warnings that they risk leaving customers feeling disgruntled and shortchanged.

The Halifax said it was leaving its variable mortgage rate unchanged at 6.85%.

Abbey National is reducing its mortgage rate by 0.1 of a point, while other leading lenders, including Cheltenham & Gloucester, have their rates under review.

This is the second time in three months that the big lenders have denied their home loan customers the full base rate reduction. Following April's quarter-point cut, the Halifax, Abbey National and many other lenders cut their mortgage rates by just 0.1, saying they had to consider the needs of savers.

However, Jim Spowart, managing director of Standard Life bank, the most successful of the mortgage newcomers, which has cut rates by 0.17, said traditional lenders were hobbled by their cost infrastructure, which limited their ability to compete on rate cuts.

Some commentators said the argument that the big institutions are trying to protect savers looked weak when figures show the average instant-access account rate has fallen to an all-time low of 1.46% - well below inflation. Five years ago this figure was 3.79%, even though the base rate, at 5.25%, was only a quarter-point higher than now.

Nationwide said: "We will be monitoring the reaction of the market. If they all drop we will have to consider a drop too. We want to remain competitive."

Virgin Direct, which dropped its mortgage rate by the full 0.25 to 6.2%, said it had carried out research showing that a failure by the big lenders to cut home loan rates "could spell the end of the basic trust which has kept many customers loyal to their banks and building societies".