Santander's 123 chop and how do we pay for the coronavirus crash?

The latest Santander 123 account rate cut, trying to turn a profit on mortgage holidays, how we pay for the coronavirus crisis and furlough scheme and the crash in car sales all feature on this week’s This is Money podcast. Once upon a time, Santander’s 123 could lay claim to being the king of the current accounts. As banks battled to customers to switch, Santander’s cashback and 3% interest-packing deal was one of the main challengers for the crown. The shine came off slightly when that interest rate was chopped to 1.5% in 2016, but now the 123 account has been doubly dented with a rate cut to 0.6% announced on the very same day the rate was already being cut to 1%. In all but name it’s now the Santander 1, 2, 0.6 account and that doesn’t quite have the same attraction. But when letters are coming through the post telling you that your savings account has been chopped to 0.01%, perhaps it is still worth bagging a current account paying 0.6%. On this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert and Georgie Frost look at why Santander has chopped again, if the deal is still worth taking regardless, and whether the great current account switching push has fizzled out. Next up on the podcast is mortgage holidays. Figures show almost 2 million people have taken up the option of a break from their mortgage payments, but some who don’t need to take one have been wondering if it might be a financially savvy move to do so anyway. Could you save or invest the skipped payments and make money in the long run? And even if that is possible, is it ethical? Plus with 6.3 million people furloughed, can we really expect the mortgage holidays to end in June – and how does the nation pay for the colossal coronavirus rescue package? And finally, Britain’s best-selling car in April was Tesla’s Model 3 but astonishingly it wasn’t the most sold vehicle. That accolade went to a van, the Mercedes Sprinter, but will the motor industry be changed by all this?  

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