From 1 July, Alliance & Leicester (A&L) will attempt to reduce its queues by making customers with cash cards withdrawing less than £300 to use the branch cash machine. The bank, which is to be renamed Santander later this year, said the change will bring the bank brand in line with other banks in the [...]
Spanish banking giant Santander has today revealed a 13% rise in fourth-quarter net profit to €2.2 billion (£1.9 billion). Meanwhile the bank, which is the second largest banking group in the world after HSBC, said gross income grew almost 24% to €10 billion. For the 2009 year as a whole, net profit was up 1% [...]
Spanish banking giant Santander is to begin its integration of UK High Street banks – Abbey and Bradford & Bingley (B&B). Santander, which is the second largest banking group in the world after HSBC, became a household name in the UK when it acquired Abbey for £9.5 billion, back in 2004. In July 2008, it [...]
Alliance & Leicester (A&L) replaced HSBC as the UK’s most consistently competitive mortgage lender during the final quarter of 2009. According to research by mortgage search software firm, Evaluate Technologies, A&L surged ahead despite having failed to register any of its home loans in best buy tables during the previous quarter. The lender, which is [...]
Abbey and Alliance & Leicester (A&L) are offering new customers a £100 incentive to switch to their current accounts. The Santander-owned banks are offering the bonus to new customers opening an Abbey Preferred Overdraft Rate account or an A&L Premier Account from today. To receive the cash bonus, customers must fund the account with a [...]
Alliance & Leicester (A&L) has launched a two-year tracker at 2.45% above base rate (currently 2.95%). The mortgage is available to both homebuyers and remortgagers who can stump up a deposit of at least 25%. It comes with a fee of £499 and the maximum loan size is £250,000. According to the lender’s director of [...]
Many people in the UK find individual savings accounts (ISAs) confusing, according to new research by Alliance & Leicester. The building society found that 71% of Brits did not know that the current Cash ISA allowance is £3,600. One in five (19%) of those questioned believed that the allowance was still £3,000. Nearly half of [...]
Alliance & Leicester (A&L) has unveiled a new range of fixed-rate mortgages, available from 4th December. The lender, which is part of the Santander group, is reducing rates by up to 0.90%. Its offering includes a two-year deal at 4.94% (previously 5.79%), fixed until 31st December 2010. Customers can borrow up to 75% of a [...]
Alliance & Leicester (A&L) has cut its Standard Variable Rate (SVR) from 7.19% to 6.94%. The 0.25% reduction applies from 30th October; existing customers on the lender’s SVR and those with SVR discounted loans will see their monthly payments change from 2nd November. The bank is also advising borrowers with base rate tracker loans that [...]
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has given Alliance & Leicester (A&L) a record fine of £7 million for mis-selling payment protection insurance (PPI). The FSA found that the bank had trained its staff to put pressure on customers who questioned the inclusion of optional PPI in a loan. During the period January 2005 to December [...]
Alliance & Leicester (A&L) is reducing interest rates for most of its mortgage products, with immediate effect. Cuts of between 0.10% and 0.55% across all but one of the bank’s home loans are accompanied by the launch of a two-year fixed-rate deal at 5.99%, which is available to both new and existing customers. A 1% [...]
Former building society, Alliance & Leicester (A&L) has sent information to its 564,000 shareholders on the £1.3 billion proposed takeover by Spanish bank, Santander. Roy Brown, acting A&L chairman, is strongly encouraging shareholders to vote for the deal and has warned if the move is rejected by shareholders, the bank would be exposed to the [...]
UK mortgage lender, Alliance & Leicester (A&L), has announced that half-year profits have nearly been wiped out after taking a £209 million hit on risky assets and higher funding costs. Pre-tax profits for the first half of 2008 plummeted to £2 million, compared with £290 million in the same period of 2007. The worldwide credit [...]
Shares in Alliance & Leicester (A&L) have rocketed 47% this morning after it has been revealed that Spanish bank Santander has agreed a deal to buy the former building society in a deal worth £1.3 billion. Shares in A&L suffered, particularly last year, after many believed it would follow in the footsteps of Northern Rock [...]
Alliance & Leicester has revamped its mortgage offering and is providing a range of new loans that became available from 3rd June. The range comprises a two-year base rate tracker at 5.89% (BBR +0.89), reverting to base rate +1.49%. The loan-to-value ratio is 75% and the arrangement fee is 2% of the loan. Maximum loan [...]
Alliance & Leicester (A&L), has announced it will write-down £391 million on treasury investments as well as on its exposures to structured investment vehicles and collateralised debt obligations, of £192 million. Furthermore, treasury investment fair-values declined £199 million in the first 4 months, against a fall of £147 million in the same period last year. [...]
M&S Money launches 3% cash ISA
M&S Money has launched an Advantage Cash ISA paying 3 per cent, and which allows transfers in from other ISAs. It can be opened with a minimum deposit of £100 lump sum followed by minimum monthly deposits of £25. The 3% rate is variable, but there is no short-term bonus so the return won’t plummet [...]
Google suspends UK Compare Mortgages site
Google has closed its UK mortgage comparison site which it launched in July last year, after it proved to be less popular than expected. Mortgage comparison sites are designed to allow visitors to compare mortgages quickly and easily without having to visit each lender’s individual site. Google was competing with several well-established comparison sites, including [...]
AA launches ‘black-box’ policy for young drivers
The AA is launching an innovative car insurance policy called Drivesafe which could help younger drivers save up to £850 a year. Younger drivers already pay substantially higher premiums than other motorists and these costs are increasing. A new study by Confused.com suggests insurance costs for younger driver have gone up by 5.7 per cent [...]
ATOL scheme updated to protect online bookers
ATOL, a financial protection scheme managed by the Civil Aviation Authority, is being extended to protect up to six million more holidays a year. The scheme ensures that holiday makers do not lose out financially if a travel company collapses, and that they are not stranded abroad. An increase in the number of holidays booked [...]
Home repossessions lowest for four years
The number of UK homes repossessed fell to 36,200 in 2011, significantly below the Council of Mortgage Lenders’ forecast of 40,000, and lower than 2010 when 37,100 homes were repossessed. With interest rates remaining low and lenders adopting a sympathetic attitude to customers in financial difficulty, repossessions fell to their lowest level since 2007. However, [...]
Monthly pay lasting just 17 days
Workers are running out of money just 17 days after receiving their monthly pay, according to new research by the Halifax bank. This means that the average UK worker spends half the month worrying about money. The study, based on the responses of more than 2,000 adults, found that 10 per cent of workers start [...]
Women disadvantaged by auto-enrolment changes
Government proposals to increase the auto-enrolment threshold to £10,000 could put 1.8 million women at risk of missing out on a pension, the TUC has warned. Under the auto-enrolment scheme, which will be phased in from October, private sector employers will automatically enrol workers between the age of 22 years and the state pension age, [...]
Emergency household repairs company Homeserve is taking longer than expected to get back on track after its operations were suspended last October. The company expected customer numbers to fall by 5% this year but it has increased this estimate to 8% and announced the loss of 200 jobs. It estimates that renewal revenue in 2013 [...]
Sale rumoured for Yorkshire and Clydesdale banks
There is growing speculation that National Australia Bank (NAB) may sell Yorkshire Bank and Clydesdale Bank after the Australian parent company announced a strategic review of the two banks’ operations. The Australian economy is performing well and NAB reported strong profits for the final quarter of 2011 but with the UK economy at a virtual [...]
More women experiencing debt difficulties
Women in Debt, which offers female-focused debt advice, has warned that the number of UK women facing serious debt has grown significantly over recent years. The organisation believes that more women will need advice on solving debt problems in the future because they are building up an unsustainable level of indebtedness. Women in Debt’s director, [...]
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