Increasing numbers of mortgage borrowers are now on their lenders' SVRs, but not all will benefit from Bank of England rate cuts. Moneywise investigates which banks have passed on the savings - and which haven't.

Interest rates have fallen by 3% since October, and are expected to continue to fall in the months ahead. Low interest rates sound like good news, but the reality is thousands of mortgage borrowers may not gain much, if any, benefit if their lenders don't pass on the cuts.

Although tracker mortgage rates should automatically decrease in-line with the Bank of England base rate, it is up to lenders whether they reduce their standard variable rates (SVR) or not.

For many borrowers, the SVR on their mortgage may have seemed unimportant when they originally took out the loan, as they expected to remortgage elsewhere once their fixed or tracker discounted period ended.

However, house price falls and a reduced supply of mortgages means an increasing number of borrowers have now been forced to sit on their lenders' SVR until things improve.

The table below shows how the biggest mortgage lenders reacted to interest rate cuts:

Lender	SVR rate cut (after 1.5% November cut)	SVR rate cut (after 1% December cut)
Abbey	1.5%	under review
HBOS	1.5%	0.25%
Nationwide	1.5%	0.69%
Lloyds TSB/ C&G	1.5%	1%
Northern Rock	1.5%	under review
RBS/NatWest	1.5%	under review
Barclays/Woowich	no change	1.15%
HSBC	0.81%	1%
A&L	1.1%	under review
Britstol & West	1.1%	1%
Bradford & Bingley	1.5%	under review
Skipton BS	0.5%	0.95% (min)
Chelsea BS	1.15%	under review
Yorkshire BS	1%	under review
Britannia BS	1%	under review
Correct as of 05/12/2008

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• SVRs
• savings
• mortgages
• interest rates