Prime lending

DESPITE recording the second­largest annual increase, the UK’s bank or prime lending rate is only the fourthhighest among all G8 nations.

Current bank lending rates across G8 nations have been analysed to see how they’ve changed in the past 12 months, and where the UK ranks in this respect when it comes to actual loan interest rates felt by homeowners and borrowers.

While the base rate is the rate at which banks or lenders interact with a given central bank, the bank lending rate is the rate that banks actually charge customers on credit products such as loans or mortgages.

The analysis of G8 bank lending rates found that the UK’s current bank/prime lending rate of 5 per cent is only the fourth­highest among G8 nations, with Russia (9.33 per cent), the United States (7.50 per cent), and Canada (6.70 per cent) all home to higher rates.