Figures which lay naked EXACTLY how a lot banks are ripping you off – and what they need to be paying YOU as an alternative: SYLVIA MORRIS

High street banks are taking savers for a ride – I’ve unearthed the figures that prove it. My calculations reveal exactly what banks should be offering you – if they were not prioritising boosting their bumper profits instead.

So if you’re not getting what you deserve, you need to switch now – otherwise you’re just helping to make them richer, rather than yourself.

Banks make a profit by taking in money from savers and lending it out to borrowers at a higher rate than they pay savers in interest.

The gap between the rate they borrow and lend at is called their net profit margin – and the bigger it is, the more money they make.

The latest figures reveal that high street banks pocketed a huge £44billion last year from the gap – a 10 pc rise in the £39.7billion in the previous year.

These are Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group (which includes Lloyds Bank, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland) NatWest (including Royal Bank of Scotland). The final total will rise further next Wednesday once we know how HSBC has done when it announces its results for the second half of last year.

They have also made enormous profits of £25billion between them, gave huge pay rises to their chief executives and made savings by closing hundreds of branches (432 according to consumer champion Which?).

These huge numbers suggest that they are making more than enough to pass on some more interest to loyal savers with money in their easy access or current accounts.

Yet they are still paying a pittance.

The biggest rise in net interest margin comes from NatWest – it is up at 2.63 pc, an 11 pc increase on the previous year’s 2.36 pc thanks to pulling in net interest of £12.82billion up from £11.27billion in 2024.

Barclays, which made £12.8billion in net interest income against £11.3billion in the previous year, has seen its margin jump by 10.3 pc to 3.63 from 3.29 pc.

Make you angry? I hope so. I hope that stirs you into action.

I understand you may be keeping your savings in your current or easy access account so you can access them quickly and easily. But with online banking, you no longer need to stick with your current account holder to do so – and you can enjoy better savings rates with other providers.

The average plain easy access account with the banks was just 1.12 pc at the end of last year, according to data scrutineer firm Moneyfacts. That’s less than one-third of the Bank of England base rate, which stands at 3.75 pc. This will get worse as more cuts are in the pipeline.

With online banking you no longer need to stick with your current account holder to do so – and you can enjoy better savings rates with other providers

Meanwhile, the average rate paid by all providers is more than double the big banks’ rate at 2.42 pc.

Last year when big banks were making bumper profits, on average you will have earned £112 interest on each £10,000 with them.

However, if they were offering the base rate, you would have made between £400 and £450 on interest last year.

It’s not feasible to expect banks not to make any profit but I think the scale of their largesse is unfair to loyal savers. Even if they had earned half the interest margin, they could still have made a profit, while paying you a much more reasonable £281 on £10,000.

This is the very least I think big banks should be paying. We know it is possible because their top-paying competitors were paying north of 4 pc – or £400 minimum, around four times as much.

Even with the average payer, you would have doubled your money at £242.

The top rate from the big banks now is Santander Easy Access Saver Issue 30 at 2 pc, but that lasts for only a year before you are dumped in its lowly Everyday Saver paying 1 pc.

The worst are Halifax Everyday Saver and Lloyds Easy Saver – both pay just 0.75 pc on balances up to £25,000 and 1 pc at best if you have over £100,000 in your account.

If you are in their closed accounts, Halifax Instant Saver and Lloyds Standard Saver – you end up here once you have been in Everyday Saver or Easy Saver for a year – you earn slightly more at 1 pc and 1.1 pc respectively. I expect these rates to fall to 0.75 pc and 1 pc shortly.

Barclays Everyday Saver pays just 1.06 pc, dropping to 1 pc on March 11. In HSBC Flexible Saver, the rate is 1.15 pc, falling to 1.05 pc on March 12 while NatWest Flexible Saver pays 1 pc on balances up to £25,000 and 1.6 pc at best on £100,000 or more.

Big banks do offer other easy-access accounts but they come with withdrawal restrictions, bonuses or limits on the amount that you can put. You often need a current account with the bank to qualify for the account.

The best is NatWest Digital Regular Saver, which pays 5.25 pc on savings of between £1 and £150 a month but only on the first £5,000 in the account.

Barclays Rainy Day pays 4.21 pc on up to £5,000 dropping to 3.96 pc on March 7. HSBC pays 3.5 pc on its Online Bonus Saver but only in months that you don’t make withdrawals (going down to 3.35 pc on March 12). In months when you take money out of your account, you earn just 1.05 pc from mid-March.