A study by financial comparison experts InfoChoice has found consumers have short-changed themselves by more than one billion dollars worth of interest in the past six months.

InfoChoice says it’s conservatively estimated Australians had 144 billion dollars not earning the best possible interest rate.

It says consumers who continually monitored rates and switched their savings to the account offering the highest interest rate could have achieved an average rate of 6.44 per cent over the past six months.

Consumers who deposited their savings in a consistently high-performing savings account avoiding the lure of one-off promotional offers could have earned up to a maximum average rate of 6.12 per cent.

But consumers with their money in an online at-call account with one of the four major banks would have received an average interest rate of just 4.61 per cent.

AAP