A decline in the nation's saving optimism has been deemed "disappointing".
Britons are taking a more pessimistic view towards saving money, new figures show.
Research by Nationwide in its latest Saving Index study reveals the score tracking the nation's overall opinion with regards to placing money in saving accounts fell five points over August to 77.
With a decline noted across all three of the index's sub-indices, the building society - which includes the Nationwide e-savings Plus savings account and the Nationwide Savings Account in its range of products - indicates that the Importance of Saving Index has fallen 12 points.
Now standing at 86, such a decline is the largest ever recorded within the index since Nationwide began tracking saving opinions in June 2008, while the Future Savings and Savings Environment Index fell by one and five points respectively.
Some 55 per cent of Britons believe it is personally important for them that they save money - a fall of four percentage points from July. Meanwhile, less than two-thirds think that saving money as a whole is important.
Findings from the building society also show 52 per cent think the current economic climate means now is a bad time to save, an increase of two per cent from July.
On the flip-side, just 16 per cent of those questioned thought the financial situation was conducive to putting money into saving accounts.
However, those that are looking to set money aside may wish to compare accounts to ensure they are getting the best rate of return on savings bonds, high interest savings accounts and other financial products.
Andy Hutchinson, head of savings for Nationwide, claims that the Saving Index's decline over the course of last month is "disappointing".
"This suggests that confidence in the savings market is still volatile and yet to stabilise, despite our earlier optimism," he states.
Such a study comes as Neil Faulkner wrote in a recent lovemoney.com article that saving rates have "suffered" in recent months, with the typical rate of return on an easy-access saving account falling 0.2 percentage points between March and September to 0.8 per cent.
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