Charles wasn't told that the interest rate paid on his savings had been reduced. We thought the bank should have done more to keep him informed.
What happened
Charles had around £60,000 in a savings account with his bank. Over the course of two years, the bank reduced the interest rate four times. Each reduction was quite small – 0.24% a year or less.
The bank didn’t tell Charles about the changes, although it did publish them on its website. Charles didn’t check the website during this time and assumed his money was still earning a reasonable rate of interest. When he finally noticed what the bank had done, Charles moved his money to a different account with a different bank – which paid a much higher rate.
Charles complained to his original bank. But it told him that each of the interest rate changes had been very small so they weren’t ‘material’. It said it didn’t have to tell Charles personally about material changes – it was enough to put the rates on its website.
Charles didn’t think this was fair, so he complained to us.
What we said
We didn’t agree with the bank. Although the changes were quite small, they were material for Charles because he had quite a lot of money in his account. The bank should have told him personally that it was changing the rate.
We also thought that Charles would have moved his money much sooner – when the first change was made – if the bank had told him about it.
So we asked the bank to calculate what Charles would have received in interest if he’d moved his money to the higher-paying account at the first rate change – and to pay him the difference between that amount and what he actually received.