CML: Mortgage lending down 29% in January

Brits ‘careless’ about insuring mobile phones

Virgin Media says it’s ‘time to shake up the market’ over mobile phone insurance because many people are failing to insurance handsets that can be worth up to £500. A study by the communications firm into consumers’ perceptions of mobile insurance, found that 72 per cent of the 1,000 consumers surveyed had not insured their [...]

Passbook account popular with building society customers

Listening to what its customers want has paid off for the Yorkshire Building Society. In a survey, three out of five customers said they preferred to manage their account in branch, more than half said they wanted a passbook, and 70 per cent said they wanted a branch-based account with a competitive variable rate. . [...]

Mortgage lending fell 30% in April

Mortgage lending fell by 30 per cent in April, with just 36,000 home loans approved, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). The fall followed the end of the stamp duty concession for first-time buyers, and loans to this group fell by nearly a half, to 12,600 in April. Many first-time buyers rushed to [...]

Flooding could lead to higher insurance premiums

Floods currently affecting Wales and south east England could be following by a rise in the price of home insurance premiums, according to analysts. The heavy rainfall could cause some insurance companies to miss their profitability targets, and there is more rain on the way according to the Met Office, with flood warnings in place [...]

Household incomes fall but fewer children in poverty

There was a fall in the average household income in 2010—11, due to rising inflation and recession, according to the government’s annual Household Below Average Income (HBAI) report. The number of children living in poverty in the UK also fell because this figure is based on median incomes, and incomes fell proportionally more for wealthier [...]

80% aspire to own their home

Although house sales have plummeted in the past five years, most people still hope to own their own home in the future. Eight out of 10 people surveyed by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said they hoped to own their own home by 2022, while three quarters said they hoped to achieve this ambition [...]

Number of pensioners in the workplace doubles

The number of people continuing to work after reaching retirement age has increased by 85 percent, from 753,000 in 1993 to 1.4 million in 2011, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ONS said this was due to a number of factors, including improved health and wellbeing for older people, with many of [...]

App enables cardless cash withdrawals at ATMs

The Getcash smartphone app allows Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest customers to withdraw money from a cash machine without using a card. Up to £100 a time can be withdrawn at 8,000 RBS, NatWest or Tesco branded ATMs, by customers who have downloaded the free app to their phone. This is significantly less than [...]

Flexecash helps to transform Park Group

Park Group has successfully transformed from a Christmas hamper business to a shopping voucher and prepaid cash card business. Growth of its popular Flexecash reward scheme helped the company increase profits by 23 per cent to £8.6 million in the year to the end of March 2012. Flexecash cards are used by companies to reward [...]

Price of car insurance rising for women

The price of car insurance for women is expected to rise in December, when a new EU directive comes into force, but it seems that some insurance companies are already increasing their charges for female customers. The latest data from comparison site Tiger.co.uk shows that the average price of a policy for a male driver [...]