North South property divide widens

Auto-enrolment could lead to pensions mis-selling

The Pensions Institute has warned that the government’s recently launched auto-enrolment programme could lead to workers being enrolled into poor-value pension schemes. This month employers started to automatically enrol workers aged between 22 years and state pension age into a workplace pension, as long as they earn £8,105 or more. The scheme has started with [...]

Annuity rates plummet due to money-printing

Annuity rates have fallen by 7 per cent in just three months according to MGM Advantage, the retirement income specialist. This means that a 65 year old man with pension savings of £50,000 would receive a retirement income of £2,579 a year from the annuity they purchased with their pension pot, compared with £2,778 in [...]

Barclays follows Co-op in banning sales incentives

Barclays is changing its bonus system for 18,000 branch and call centre staff, following a similar move by the Co-operative bank. Barclays is ending the practice of awarding staff commission for selling financial policies. Like the Co-op, Barclays will now provide bonuses for good customer service rather than for meeting sales targets. Antony Jenkins, who [...]

Co-operative Bank bans sales incentives

The Co-operative Bank has banned sales incentives for its branch staff and replaced them with an incentive system which rewards good customer service with bonuses of up to £400 per quarter. Around 3 per cent of branch staff were offered incentives to sell products. The Co-op plans to introduce the new customer service incentive scheme [...]

UK out of recession economic research institute claims

The UK economy returned to growth in the third quarter according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), marking an end to the double dip recession. The NIESR estimates that GDP grew by 0.8 per cent in the three months ending in September, building on an improvement seen in the three months [...]

Pick up in UK house sales expected

House sales in the UK are expected to improve in the next three months, helped by the government’s funding for lending scheme, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). The Funding for Lending scheme, launched by the government and the Bank of England, makes £80bn of lower cost funding available to lenders to [...]

Barclays expands through ING Direct acquisition

Barclays is acquiring the UK operations of Dutch banking and insurance group ING Direct. Barclays will take on ING UK’s £10.9bn of deposits and its £5.6bn mortgage book, as well as 750 employees and 1.5 million customers. ING, which has its UK headquarters in Reading, is divesting its UK assets to help raise funds to [...]

Frodo Financial launches overdraft service

Frodo Financial, a new financial technology company, has launched an online overdraft system which provides an alternative to a bank overdraft. The new Frodo Flexi account provides a rolling cash-credit facility of between £1,000 and £10,000 that runs alongside a customer’s current account with their existing bank. It offers a 16.9% APR variable interest rate [...]

Security concerns over NatWest mobile banking app

NatWest bank has suspended its Get Cash app which allows customers to withdraw money from a cash machine without a debit card, according to a report by the BBC. Customers request the cash on their mobile and a 6 digit pin is generated which they then enter at the cash money to withdraw funds. However, [...]

UK consumer spending higher in September

Consumer spending increased by 3 per cent in September compared with August, as people spent more on clothes and in hotels and restaurants. The figures, from Visa Europe’s UK expenditure index which is compiled by Markit, represent the biggest increase since May 2009. The increased spending follows improvements in the job market which have boosted [...]