Martin Lewis urges everyone to switch to these four banks

There's money to be made

The Money Saving Expert has emphasised the importance of customers making sure they have a look at what other banks are offering in terms of rates on easy-access savings accounts.

He explained that savings rates are 'mirroring' mortgages, except in this case 'higher rates are good.'

In a post on X, he said: "The top easy access savings now beat fixes. Check what yours pay, you can still get 5% or more."

In his weekly newsletter, Lewis went into more detail about the rates on easy-access accounts.

He said: "What's happening to savings is a mirror of mortgages, except here higher rates are good, lower bad. The rate you can fix at has dropped, as they're based on longer-term interest-rate predictions, while the top paying variable (easy-access) rates haven't, as they're based on the UK base rate, which the Bank of England held last week.

"So while normally you tend to get better rewarded for locking money away in a fix, right now you don't. The market consensus is the UK base rate will be cut in November, so easy-access rates are likely to drop 0.25 percentage points then, but that'd still leave the best of them on par with current fixes, so it's looking good, especially if you want access to your cash.

"Though the benefit of fixing is long-term rate surety, so if you want to ensure a certain rate, and not risk big future drops, fixing and fixing longer does that (and as fixed rates may creep down a touch over the coming months, sooner is likely safer). For everyone though, the key rule is there are HUGE variances between the best and the bog-standard rates in each category, so check what you earn, and ditch and switch if you can."

Lewis went on to give readers his top four banks to switch to for the best easy-access rates.

These were:

• Chip (5 per cent)
• Oxbury (4.87 per cent)
• OakNorth Bank (4.82 per cent)
• Monument (4.81 per cent)

Chip has no minimum amount required to open an account with them and can be done via an app, while Oxbury is available online with a minimum of £25,000 and maximum of £500k. OakNorth requires a minimum of £20k, while Monument starts at £25k.

"There are far more options in top savings, including top big-name savings, plus higher rates if you have (or open) the right current account," Lewis added.