US economic indicators good on consumer spending

OFT warns Wonga over debt collection methods

Payday loan company Wonga used aggressive and misleading methods to collect debts from customers, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has found. Wonga sent letter and emails to certain customers suggesting they had committed fraud and threatening to report them to the police if they did not act in the way Wonga suggested. The company [...]

NS&I re-launches investment account

National Savings & Investments (NS&I) has re-launched its Investment Account at a higher interest rate than it previously offered. The account now offers 0.75 per cent before tax, compared with between 0.2 and 0.3 per cent previously, depending on the account balance. Deposits and withdrawals on the account can no longer be made at Post [...]

Rightmove reports property downsizing trend

Two in five property owners planning to sell in the next year are planning to ‘trade down’, compared with one in four who plan to ‘trade up’. A survey by property website Rightmove found that moving to a smaller home is the main reason for moving in nine out of the ten regions in the [...]

More people failing to save for retirement

The proportion of people with no pension savings has grown from 20 per cent to 22 per cent over the past year, according to Scottish Widows’ latest survey. The pension provider surveyed 5,200 adults in the UK, aged 30 or over, and earning at least £10,000 a year, for its annual review of pensions. Ian [...]

FSCS reassures Santander customers

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) will protect depositors in Santander, the scheme’s chief executive, Mark Neale, said. Deposits up to the value of £85,000 are protected by the scheme and savers with more than this amount should distribute the money across different banks and building societies, to ensure that the total amount is protected. [...]

Payday loans trapping people in debt

Payday loans have soared in popularity over the past few years, but consumer group Which? warns they are trapping people in a ‘downward spiral of debt’. Problems start to escalate if people are unable to pay back their loan on time, with some companies charging excessively high penalties for late repayments. Which? discovered that Quid24.com [...]

Turmoil in Eurozone increases mortgage costs

The Bank of England has warned that the ongoing Eurozone crisis is pushing up the cost of borrowing on wholesale financial markets. This is making it more expensive for lenders to fund mortgages and they are passing the costs on to customers by increasing their mortgage rates. “In the absence of falls in funding costs, [...]

400,000 more English homes in fuel poverty

An increase in the price of gas and electricity price at the end of 2011 is estimated to have pushed 400,000 more homes in England into fuel poverty, according to the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The new projections show that 3.9 million homes in England were in fuel poverty at the end [...]

Charities call for urgent action on housing crisis

A new report claims there is an urgent need for more affordable homes and says that five key housing issues are getting worse. The Housing Report published by the National Housing Federation, homelessness charity Shelter and the Chartered Institute of Housing, calls on the government to ‘get Britain building’ in order to provide the homes [...]

Mortgage lending to first-time buyers up 74% in March

Mortgage lending to first-time buyers soared in March, as house-buyers rushed to buy their first home before the end of the stamp duty holiday. Properties below the value of £250,000, purchased before 24 March, were exempt from the 1 per cent tax. Twenty-four thousand mortgages were approved for first-time buyers in March, a 74 per [...]