How will the credit crunch affect your savings? Is your nest egg safe in the Isle of Man? Is now a good time to be shopping around for a new mortgage?

Who better to ask than the Governor of the Bank of England - unless you can get through to the Chancellor himself?

Three of Britain's most powerful public servants face a grilling from MPs today about the world financial crisis and for the first time the questions will be provided by members of the public.

MPs on the Treasury Select Committee will have a pool of some 5,000 e-mailed questions to choose from when they take testimony from Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, Mervyn King, the BoE chief, and Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

Officially, the hearing forms part of an inquiry into "the Banking Crisis" - and the Government's £37 billion bailout of ailing banks - but it appears that many of those who sent in queries were keen for a bit of personal financial advice right from the horse's mouth.

A spokeswoman for the committee said today that committee members, headed by John McFall, the Labour MP for West Dunbartonshire, had been given access to all 5,000 questions, although the committee staff had also gone through them to remove duplicates and whittle them down.

The spokeswoman said that many of the questions focused on the terms of the bailout and the conditions attached, including the remuneration of City executives. Many questioners wanted to know where the money was being spent.

Many of those who have sent questions in have a direct personal interest in the answers, however. They include angry depositors from the offshore Isle of Man subsidiary of the Icelandic bank Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander whose assets, totalling some £800 million, were frozen by the UK Treasury under anti-terrorism laws last month but who have not yet received any guarantee that they will get their money back.

It's too late to ask any questions of the trio. The deadline was on Saturday at 4pm, 48 hours before the hearing.

Times Recommends

• The playboy and the Tory party leader
• Bin Laden's family tree is impenetrable jungle
• Paul McCartney