SAVERS have been urged to snap up top-paying fixed rate bonds fast, as they could be gone in days or even hours.

Returns on savings accounts have been at seven-year highs for much of this year, as lenders have become increasingly reliant on consumer deposits to fund their mortgage book. But following the Bank of England's shock base rate cut to 3 per cent, best buy deals of more than 6.5 per cent on savings accounts and 7 per cent on bonds are not expected to be around for long.

Abbey, owned by the Spanish banking group Santander, said that it will cut the top rate on its one and two-year fixed rate bonds by one percentage point on Monday. Anyone who applies before the end of Sunday will lock into a rate of 6 per cent, before it drops to 5 per cent on Monday.

Most of the other banks seemed to have been caught on the hop by the one and half percentage point base rate cut. But many of the best deals are expected to disappear in the next few days.

ICICI, the Indian bank that has long topped the best buy tables with its HiSave one-year bond paying 7.1 per cent, said: "No decision has been made, but we can't guarantee that rate will be available this weekend."

Rachel Thrussell of Moneyfacts, the financial website, said: "The 1.5 per cent cut was quite a shock so the major banks seem to be taking their time to decide what to do, but the best rates are unlikely to be around much longer."

A number of smaller building societies pulled their fixed-rate deals immediately after the base rate cut, including Britannia, Chesham and Principality building societies. Because they are small, they have to react quickly to events that could alter the inflow of deposits.

Savers have been urged to keep a close eye on their existing accounts in case banks and building societies use this opportunity to cut rates dramatically.

When the base rate last fell, by 0.5 percentage points in October, most banks and building societies cut their savings rates by the same amount.

Some made even bigger reductions. Intelligent Finance, the online bank owned by HBOS, cut rates on all of its savings accounts by up to 0.65 percentage points, for example, while Nationwide building society cut rates by up to 0.60 points.

Andrew Hagger, of Moneynet.co.uk, another financial website, said basic rate taxpayers would be an average of £12 a year worse off for each £1,000 they had saved, if returns are reduced by the full 1.5 per cent.