Nationwide reduces offshore interest rates

Nationwide is reducing interest rates for its offshore savings accounts.

The building society’s offshore subsidiary announced that the interest rate paid to customers with over £25,000 in a Sterling Base Rate Tracker account will drop from 4.15% to 3.25%.

Customers with a balance less than £25,000 will see their interest rate drop from 3.6% to 2.7%.

Interest paid to customers holding a Nationwide instant access offshore savings account will be cut from 0.5% to 0.1% for balances under £1,000. Balances over £1,000 will be paid 0.45%, over £25,000, 0.6%, and over £50,000, 0.7%. All three of these have been cut by 0.5%.

Many of the rate cuts, however, are larger than the Bank of England’s 0.5% January base rate cut.

Nationwide recently cut interest rates on UK savings accounts. It said this had to be done because mortgage interest rates had also been reduced.

The new rates are effective from 2 February 2009.

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