Deputy BoE Governor tells savers to spend

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Charlie Bean, Bank of England deputy governor, says the UK's savers should "eat into" their reserve cash now to help them survive historically low interest rates.

He told Channel 4 News "in the short term we want to see households not saving more, but spending more". "I think it needs to be said that savers shouldn't necessarily expect to be able to live just off their income in times when interest rates are low. It may make sense for them to eat into their capital a bit." He said he sympathised with the plight of savers and BoE Governor Mervyn King gets more letters from savers complaining when the MPC puts interest rates down than from borrowers when rates go up. "It's very much swings and roundabouts. At the current juncture, savers might...

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