Savings

A number of major banks including HSBC, First Direct and Tesco have already raised mortgage rates after yesterday's base rate rise but have kept quiet on whether to pass on the increase for savers, MoneySavingExpert.com has found.

Banks may be told to introduce a single interest rate for all savers who've had their accounts for more than 12 months - meaning long-term savers could be given better rates, but shorter-term customers may lose out.

The Bank of England has today decided keep the base rate at 0.5%.

If you've still got any old £10 notes, beware – you only have until Thursday 1 March to spend them before they're officially withdrawn by the Bank of England. Here's what's happening and what you can do if you miss the deadline. Following the launch of the new polymer tenner in September, the older £10 notes featuring Charles Darwin have been gradually phased out and will cease to be legal tender in a few days' time. It's believed that more than a quarter of the old £10 notes, worth a staggering £2.2 billion, remain in circulation - so if you've any old tenners, the last day to use them is Thursday 1 March. After this date, retailers will no longer accept them. North of the border, older Scottish £5 and £10 notes will also stop being accepted on 1 March, but there are no changes planned for Northern Irish banknotes.

MoneySavers have been sharing their cost-cutting successes in 2017 on social media – including everything from huge energy and mortgage switching successes to reclaims after the airline Monarch collapsed and a super-cheap vacuum cleaner deal.

RBS-owned Ulster Bank is working to remove hard searches from the credit files of those who have applied for its market-leading savings account after admitting it conducted "incorrect credit scoring", MoneySavingExpert.com can reveal.

Parents signed up to the new Tax-Free Childcare scheme have told MoneySavingExpert.com they're unable to access money they've put into it and are struggling to pay nurseries and childminders, as massive technical problems continue to dog the site more than a month after it launched.

The world of 0% credit card advertising is a 'wild west' with far too few rules to protect consumers, a new MoneySavingExpert.com report reveals.