A new campaign to encourage retail savers to invest in the stock market is being considered by the Treasury.
According to reports in the Telegraph and Bloomberg, the campaign will try to persuade people to switch out of savings accounts due to the impact inflation is having on their money.
Ministers have also become increasingly frustrated by the growing gap between the costs of mortgages and what banks offer their savings customers.
Bosses from NatWest, HSBC, Lloyds and Barclays have been called into a meeting with the Financial Conduct Authority on Thursday to explain the gap.
Andrew Griffith, the economic secretary to the Treasury, said: “Wider share ownership is good for savers, good for the economy and good for society.”
“Increasing individual share ownership is also about changing culture, attitudes to risk and supporting individual responsibility.”
The advertising campaign has been proposed by right-wing think tank the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), which says only 4% of the UK population’s assets are in shares, lower than France, Germany and Spain.
Most ISA accounts are also the cash-only variety, said the think tank, which also wants the public to have access to IPOs through a guaranteed allocation.
“The alternative to investing is not keeping your money safe, but seeing it relentlessly lose its value if kept in cash”.