Personal finance: Loyalty to your Scottish bank might hurt your pocket � it�s official.

Loyalty to your Scottish bank might hurt your pocket - it's official. For anyone who has their current account with any of the big six high-street banks, which include the two big Scottish banks, and Lloyds TSB and Abbey, there are savings to be made on your other financial needs, and information group Moneyfacts has provided chapter and verse.

Take borrowing. A two-year fixed rate on 75% loan to value of a £150,000 mortgage could be found, with best buy ING Direct, for 5.98% with a £999 fee. That would mean a real repayment cost of £24,150.

In the high street, Royal Bank comes close with a cost of £24,181, but the other banks are adrift by £461 (Abbey), £624 (Bank of Scotland), £1116 (Cheltenham & Gloucester, part of Lloyds TSB), and £2037 (Woolwich, part of Barclays).

For personal loans, the Scottish banks look very expensive, with a five-year £7500 loan costing £2107 (Bank of Scotland) and £2156 (Royal Bank) in interest against £1754 at Lloyds TSB, £1745 at HSBC and £1544 at Abbey.

The best buy is from Moneyback Bank, part of Alliance & Leicester, with a cost of £1492, a saving of more than £600 on the Scottish banks.

If you are relying on a credit card, the costs vary just as much.

Moneyfacts measures the interest payable on £3000 of debt, repaying the minimum each month, with no introductory deals.

Barclays has by far the cheapest card, with an interest cost of £903 on its Simplicity Visa card, which charges only 6.8% (and 15.8% for cash withdrawals).

HSBC's cost is £2131, and at Lloyds it would be £2140.

However, credit card debt at the other three banks is expensive: Abbey and Royal Bank both weigh in at £3325, and the Halifax Bank of Scotland card would cost £4368 - remember, that's to borrow £3000 on your card.

Across the three products, the extra cost of not finding the best buys amount to £1633 at HSBC, £2367 at Barclays, £2915 at Lloyds TSB, £2934 at Abbey, £3117 at Royal Bank, and £4703 at Halifax Bank of Scotland.

But when it comes to savings, the Scottish banks fail to redeem themselves, according to Moneyfacts.

It takes a "standard instant access account" and finds the best buy from a mainstream provider to be the 6.1% on offer from Chelsea building society. That would yield £305 interest on £5000 over a year.

In comparable accounts it finds interest would be £188 at Barclays, £175 at Lloyds TSB, £140 at Abbey and £100 at HSBC - with Royal Bank offering £70 and Halifax a piddling £25.

That keeps the Scottish giants anchored to the foot of the Moneyfacts table. But wait, there is one category left - current accounts.

On the average £1000 held in a standard current account over a year, Alliance & Leicester's customers would earn £85 (best buy) and Abbey's £80. At Lloyds it is now £40, at the others virtually nil except Halifax Bank of Scotland, whose much-advertised account would yield £51.20 - leaving HBOS more than £5000 adrift of the best buys across the five basic products, and £1580 worse than the next most expensive bank, Royal Bank.

HBOS said the survey was not a fair representation of its products.

The main feature of its credit cards was their introductory offers, and another two-year mortgage product from the Halifax range would have cost only £23,497.

The average current account was held for seven years, "so we definitely reward our customers over the longer term".

Royal Bank said: "Last year, according to leading independent research, RBS was the number one for major high street banks customers who rate themselves extremely satisfied' with their main current account provider."