Santander-owned Alliance & Leicester (A&L) has launched a new individual savings account (ISA) designed to attract customers who may have been put off saving by the current climate of low interest rates. The one-year fixed rate bond ISA pays interest at 3.00% tax free, with the account maturing on 1 May 2010. Minimum deposit is [...]
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 has launched two new guaranteed investment products. Both the Guaranteed Growth Plan (Issue 20) and the Guaranteed Capital Plus (Issue 7) come with a capital guarantee and a minimum return if held for the full term. The products are available until 18 March 2009, and have a minimum investment of £1,500. The [...]
Alliance & Leicester (A&L) has announced plans to increase lending to small business (SME) customers by more than 25% this year. Increased lending will “help customers to stabilise their business finances,” the bank said. The announcement follows a 49% increase in small business lending by the Santander-owned bank during 2008; in the past three years [...]
Abbey and Alliance & Leicester (A&L) have launched a new bond with a guaranteed fixed rate of interest. The two year bond pays interest at 4.01% AER – four times the Bank of England’s base rate – on balances between £30,000 and £200,000. Although this is significantly lower than rates that were offered in 2008, [...]
Financial services provider Legal & General Mortgage Club (L&G) has launched an exclusive two-year 3.69% fixed-rate deal for remortgage customers, provided by Alliance & Leicester. Maximum loan to value (LTV) is 60%, and the arrangement fee is £1,499. Martyn Smith, L&G’s head of mortgages, said he expects the offer to be ‘snapped up’ by borrowers [...]
A new Super Saver account was launched this week by Santander-owned Alliance & Leicester. The Super Saver account offers a 5.5% fixed rate for 12 months if customers invest an equal amount in any other Alliance & Leicester investment product, including guaranteed capital products. Customers who only place money in the Super Saver will receive [...]
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 [...]
Following the large-scale withdrawal of tracker mortgages last week, as the bank of England’s base rate fell to 3%, a number of lenders have now reintroduced tracker loans, some having increased their margins. Abbey is offering a two-year tracker deal for those with a 25% deposit, at 1.99% above base rate (4.99%) compared with an [...]
Spanish bank, Santander, has raised eyebrows today by announcing a €7.2 billion (£5.9 billion) rights issue. The bank, which recently acquired Alliance & Leicester, said the heavily discounted rights issue will allow it to strengthen its capital and provide an investment opportunity for its shareholders. However, just last week the bank insisted it had no [...]
High Street bank Abbey, which is owned by Santander, has announced a rise of 70% in new deposits as consumers look for a secure place to deposit their savings. During the first nine months of the year, Abbey said it took £4.3 billion in deposits, compared with £2.5 billion during the same period in 2007. [...]
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 [...]
A crisis might be a time for action rather than questions but with the scale of the problems facing the UK banking sector escalating, one particular question regularly bubbles to the surface. Is Grupo Santander any more likely to emerge from the credit crisis in sound shape than some of its failing European rivals? Santander [...]
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 [...]
High Street lender Abbey is set to overtake Halifax as Britain’s biggest mortgage company for the first time ever. Abbey, which is owned by Spanish bank Santander, is due to announce tomorrow that it gained over 25% of all new mortgages sold in the first half of 2008 – up from its previous share of [...]
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, the UK’s ninth-largest mortgage lender, has increased interest rates for new customers with less than a 25% deposit. Borrowers needing to raise between 76% and 90% of a property’s value will now be charged 6.49% on a two-year fixed-rate mortgage, rather than 5.74%. The 0.75 percentage point increase adds £864 per annum [...]
Phone fraudsters stealing bank card pins
Fraudsters using a phone scam to trick bank card holders into revealing their pin numbers stole £750,000 in the first four months of this year. This is the same amount stolen through this scam in the whole of last year. The fraudster telephones a bank customer, often someone elderly or vulnerable, telling them that their [...]
FSA rules out ban on interest-only mortgages
Speculation that the Financial Services Authority would ban interest-only mortgages as part of its Mortgage Market Review has proved to be unfounded. However, lenders will be required to monitor the performance of the investment product taken out by the customer to repay the mortgage at the end of its term. Investments are performing poorly because [...]
Bank of England may end free in-credit banking
A director of the Bank of England has warned that official intervention could be considered to end the ‘dangerous myth of free in-credit banking’. Andrew Bailey has already spoken out against free banking in relation to the mis-selling of financial products. In a speech made available to media, he reiterated his concern, saying that it [...]
Bank of England votes against more economic stimulus
The Bank of England voted against a further round of quantitative easing, at its latest Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting. Just one member, David Miles, voted for further asset purchase to encourage growth in the UK economy, while the other eight members voted to keep the Bank’s quantitative easing programme steady at £325bn. The minutes [...]
Catalogue debt growing says helpline
Calls from people concerned about their debts with mail order catalogues accounted for more than 12 per cent of all calls received by National Debtline last year, compared with just 8 per cent in 2007. More people were concerned about catalogue debt than about payday loans, mortgage or rent, according to the Money Advice Trust [...]
Homeserve faces mis-selling investigation
HomeServe, which provides emergency insurance cover and domestic repairs to households in the UK, is to be investigated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Issues over the possible mis-selling of household emergency policies were uncovered last October during an internal review at the Walsall-based company. Homeserve’s call centre staff were found to be selling ‘Complete [...]
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 [...]
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