George Osborne’s pledge to offer cut-price Lloyds Banking Group shares to the public next year appears to have attracted a new range of investors.

According to research by financial firm Hargreaves Lansdown, one in eight of the 170,000 people who have registered for its email updates are first-time investors, while one in five had been involved in other flotations or privatisations in the 1980s and 90s, Hargreaves Lansdown said.

The firm’s senior analyst, Laith Khalaf, said investors were keen to buy shares to put in savings products such as ISAs but it was not yet clear if this would be possible.

The chancellor said earlier this month that around £2bn Lloyds shares – half the amount first signalled by David Cameron in April – are to be sold directly to retail investors in a move expected to complete the return of Lloyds to the private sector. The bank was bailed out with £20bn of taxpayer funds in 2008 and 2009.

“The public response to the Lloyds share offer is a welcome tonic to the rising level of unsecured borrowing, which is now at a five-year high,” said Khalaf.

The government has set up its own website to allow investors to register an interest. Within one week 250,000 people had signed up.