PayPal, the payments business which allows payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet, has been experiencing technical difficulties for the past week. The glitch, which is affecting UK customers, has led to large numbers of transactions being sent for security checks, causing payments to be delayed. The problem is believed to have [...]
The high cost of car insurance premiums has prompted an investigation into the market amid concerns that it is dysfunctional and not working well for motorists. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has referred the private motor insurance market to the Competition Commission because if believes that the way the market is structured is pushing [...]
The Financial Services Authority has revealed the results of its six-monthly review of complaints, showing that LLoyds and Barclays are the two most complained-about banks. Complaint numbers have rocketed as a result of the Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) mis-selling scandal and have now reached the rate of one PPI complaint every 7 seconds. Between January [...]
Debit and credit card fraud increased to £185m in the first six months of this year, an increase of 9 per cent from the same period last year, according to the UK Cards Association. The use of chip and PIN technology has helped to cut the amount of fraud substantially from a peak of £304.2 [...]
Banks and building societies have significantly increased levels of mortgage lending according to a Bank of England survey. Mortgage lending increased significantly in the three months to September and is expected to rise again in the final quarter. However, demand from buyers in the three months to September was subdued, with falling housing prices having [...]
M&S Bank which opened its first branch in July, launched its first current accounts today. The accounts are available from the bank’s 13 in-store branches. The retailer hopes to attract customers by capitalising on its reputation as a trusted brand. A marketing campaign, launched to promote the new accounts, uses the strapline ‘new fashioned banking’ [...]
The government’s NewBuy mortgage scheme has reached 1,500 reservations according to the Home Builders Federation (HBF). The scheme is designed to help boost the number of mortgages available to home buyers with smaller deposits. NewBuy mortgages are available to buyers of new build properties who have just a 5 per cent deposit on their new [...]
A new report from analytics firm Data Genetics suggests that criminals can guess PIN numbers 10 per cent of the time purely because people are choosing PIN numbers that are easy to remember. Data Genetics found that one in nine people use “1234” as their PIN number when withdrawing cash at ATMs or making payments [...]
The average cost of car insurance premiums has fallen by nearly 11 per cent, according to research by price comparison website MoneySupermarket. Premiums have been rising for some time but increased competition among insurers and the use of price comparison sites, has finally helped prices to fall across the UK. Motorists in Cleveland and Harrogate [...]
With sixty-five areas of England on flood alert, the Association of British Insurers is warning home owners to keep insurance documents and emergency contact details in a safe, dry place. Contacts for gas, water and electricity providers should also be kept safe. The organisation is advising people to check their gardens, as winds of up [...]
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has revealed plans for parents and grandparents to use their pension pot to help younger members of the family onto the housing ladder. The Liberal Democrats are suggesting that future lump sum pension payouts could be used to guarantee a mortgage. This would help younger people who are currently unable [...]
Sir Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, expects the UK economy to return to growth in the next quarter, marking an end to the double-dip recession. Speaking on Channel 4 News, Sir Mervyn warned that recovery would be slow and said that the continuing crisis in the eurozone creates uncertainty for British [...]
Housing charity Shelter is calling for landlords to offer Stable Rent Contracts, which would give families the confidence to turn a rented property into a home. Stable Rent Contracts, which would offer five-year tenancies, would also give landlords the security of a steady income, the charity said. Rents would increase in line with inflation each [...]
Around nine out of ten doctors want the government to clamp down on bogus whiplash claims made by motorists, according to research by insurance group AXA. Seven per cent of the doctors polled by AXA had been offered money to refer patients with whiplash injuries. Twenty-two per cent of the doctors said the number of [...]
New EU rules, due to take effect on 21 December, are expected to lead to a substantial increase in the cost of car insurance for female drivers, but could benefit female pensioners. In 2011, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled that setting insurance premiums or pensions based on gender was discriminatory and breached [...]
Allow Ltd, a London-based company focused on helping people protect the privacy of their personal data, has launched the UK’s first social media insurance for consumers. The firm offers services to deal with social media account hacking, reputational damage and other types of ID theft. With Facebook accounts being hacked at a rate of 600,000 [...]
Consumer watchdog Which? has launched a new campaign calling for banks to put customers first. The ‘Big Change’ campaign will put pressure on the banking sector to focus less on profits and more on the services they offer. Its launch precedes a meeting of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards in December, which will consider [...]
UK house prices grew at their fastest rate in London in the year to the end of July, according to the latest House Price Index from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). While house prices increased by 5.7 per cent in the capital, they increased by just 2 per cent in the rest of the [...]
Inflation fell to 2.5 per cent in August, from 2.6 per cent in the previous month, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). The latest official figures from the Office of National Statistics also show that inflation also fell on the Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure, from 3.2 per cent in July to 2.9 [...]
Despite its commitment to ethical business practices the Co-op has stopped offering bank accounts to people who are undischarged bankrupts. Bankrupts are usually automatically discharged from bankruptcy after 12 months and are then freed from bankruptcy restrictions and from the debts owed. People who are undischarged bankrupts will have access only to Barclays’ Cash Card [...]
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 [...]
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