Will coronavirus affect my pension, savings and investments? A guide on what to do with your money

“It may be a good idea to lock some of you money away because of the uncertainty,” she said. “The risk being that things recover quicker than we are expecting.”

Rates on fixed bonds tend to be higher than regular savings accounts, but the money can usually only be accessed after a period of at least a year.

However, Ms Bowes said many providers are withdrawing bonds from the market and replacing them with new issues with lower rates. Bucking the trend, SmartSave removed its fixed-rate account paying 1.45pc on the day that Bank rate was reduced and replaced it with a new issue paying 1.56pc. The rate has now been reduced to 1.4pc.

Marcus, the Goldman Sachs-backed provider, has launched a new one-year bond paying 1.45pc.

What about Premium Bonds?

The millions of savers who own Premium Bonds have been bracing themselves for rate cuts after the announcement that financing targets for the Government-backed savings vehicle Nation Savings & Investments (NS&I) have been cut from £11bn to £6bn for the next tax year.

NS&I was originally planning on scaling back the prizes on Premium Bonds and rates on its other accounts, however it has decided to hold off from doing so in order to support savers during the coronvirus period. 

The odds on winning a prize with Premium Bonds will remain 26,000 to one and the effective interest rate will also stay at 1.4pc.

Whether it will go on to implement rate cuts after the pandemic is unclear. 

Will my pension be protected?

For most people, their pension will vie with their house for the most valuable asset they have. Naturally, at times of economic uncertainty such as these, people may fear that their retirement pot will be wiped out.

Joe Dabrowski, of the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA), a trade body, said these fears are overblown. Even at the height of the financial crisis, the number of final salary schemes that collapsed was low and today they are governed by stricter funding rules, he said.

If a scheme did fail, the Pension Protection Fund would pay out in most cases. Retirees who are already receiving their benefits would continue to receive them, while deferred members and those who are yet to retire would get 90pc of the expected income. 

There is a cap of £40,000 a year but Mr Dabrowski said that just 0.1pc of those who have entered the PPF have had pensions worth more than this.

He added that, as most employers have moved from defined benefit to defined contribution schemes, the level of risk in the latter is likely to be low. He said schemes may have around 25pc of their assets in stocks with as much as 60pc in safer government bonds.

The PPF has moved to reassure pension savers that it is confident it has a “sustainable funding strategy” to protect retirement pots.

The Pensions Regulator has said it will allow trustees to suspend all transfer activity for three months to help them stabilise. This will frustrate those who were on the cusp of transferring out of their final salary scheme. The watchdog also warned that savers could be susceptible to scams at a time of turbulence for the market.