When the Bank of England hikes the base rate, the usual knock-on effect is that banks and building societies increase interest rates on savings accounts. However, in practice most banks have been slow to pass on the recent increases in the base rate to their customers. So while at the time of writing (August 2023) the base rate stands at 5.25%, some high-street banks are still paying as little as 0.6% on some instant-access savings accounts.