I risparmiatori del Regno Unito hanno più di £ 614 miliardi in contanti in eccesso

“The excess amount, which Barclays said was based on people who already hold more than six months’ income in cash, underscores the challenge facing the government as it tries to funnel more money into investments.”

I presume this is going to mainly be retired people and folk saving for deposits etc who aren’t going to be wanting to risk the cash on short term fluctuations in the stock market.

I find the use of the term “excess cash” weird.

Even if you’re young, there are many reasons why you might want to keep your savings in cash beyond just your emergency fund. If you’re saving up for a house deposit, home renovation, wedding or other big thing then you’re unlikely to want to risk that money on investments that might go down.

I do think though that public education of some kind would be beneficial regarding investments. A lot of people think it involves individual stock picking (I’ve been asked what stocks I recommend when I mention that I’ve got money in stocks and shares) and that’s understandably offputting. No investment is risk free by any means but it’s a lot less risky to chuck your money into an index tracker than try and guess which individual companies will do well.

As someone getting older, who has worked hard and saved, got no kids and have seen the state of social care and state pension ages, I’m calling it a survival fund, thanks.

We should absolutely encourage people to save so that they can live at a decent standard when they are older without resorting to the state. Using terms like “excess cash” doesn’t seem helpful.

That’s less than the combined worth of the 2 richest people.

The hype I don’t get around this is that what is most likely to happen off of a big push for moving cash savings to investments is that people will instead invest in global and specifically US equity/index funds, so whilst the average uk citizen may end up with more value in assets, actual uk companies won’t see much of a benefit besides the platforms and financial advisers, as nobody will be investing in them.

Like basically every other issue with this country, the Government needs some radical housing reform. They can keep lowering interest rates & try telling everyone how we need to spend to save the economy, but every young person is saving for a house & they’re going to keep living frugally & saving until they can get one. Once they have a house/aren’t paying all their income on rent, then they’ll have true excess to spend.
Instead they’ve always focussed on concentrating all the wealth into the older generations who already have everything they need & don’t spend at all

I have some savings but no way would I call it “excess cash”.

Is that all, less than £9000 per person on average? Scary stuff…