Abbey, Alliance & Leicester, and Bradford & Bingley have announced the launch of a new two-year fixed-rate bond paying interest at 4.2%. Savers can open the bond with an investment of between £10,000 and £2 million. Any withdrawals incur a penalty of 120 days interest. The bonds can be opened by visiting any branch of [...]
A new bond from Leeds Building Society paying 4% interest can be opened with as little as £100. The four-year fixed-rate bond was launched alongside a two-year bond paying 3.5% interest. Both bonds can be opened with a minimum investment of £100 and a maximum of £1,000,000. Furthermore, both allow savers to withdraw up to [...]
For the third consecutive month, the European Central Bank (ECB) has elected to keep interest rates unchanged at 1%. The last time the ECB cut rates was in May and prior to that, rates were cut seven times since October 2008 when rates stood at 4.25%. In a further attempt to boost the struggling economy, [...]
Norwich & Peterborough Building Society (N&P) this week announced plans to increase the interest rates on its ISAs and fixed rate bonds. Rates on its two and five year fixed rate ISAs increased to 3.05% and 4.55% respectively. Three and five year fixed rate bonds at the building society now pay up to 4.3% and [...]
Nationwide has launched a new range of fixed-rate ISA bonds paying interest at up to 4.5%. The bonds are available for one year, three years, or five years, paying interest at 3%, 3.75% and 4.5% respectively. The ISAs can be opened with a minimum of £1, and savers can opt to transfer the balance from [...]
Iceland has unveiled a €1.5 billion (£1.3 billion) scheme to recapitalise its three major banks. The Government will issue bonds to the three new banks it is creating from the collapsed ones. It is hoped the plan will get the banking system on a stronger footing after its three largest banks, Glitnir, Landsbanki and Kaupthing, [...]
The Cheshire and Derbyshire Building Societies this week unveiled three new fixed-rate bonds aimed at savers willing to lock away their money in exchange for a strong interest rate. Available for one, two or three years, the fixed-rate bonds pay interest at 3.75%, 4.15%, and 4.5% respectively. At Derbyshire consumers can invest between £100 and [...]
Nationwide Building Society yesterday increased the interest it pays on fixed-rate bonds and e-Bonds, with a headline interest rate of 5%. The fixed-rate bonds are available to anyone, while the e-Bonds are available online to any Nationwide customer with a Nationwide FlexAccount. Both accounts are available for one year, 18 months, two years, three years [...]
Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s has reported that like-for-like sales were up 7.8% for the 12 week period to 13 June. The news comes just a day after fellow supermarket Tesco posted a 4.3% rise in quarterly sales and said it had made a “solid” start to its financial year. Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s, which is Britain’s third-largest supermarket, [...]
As expected the Bank of Israel has left interest rates at 0.5 percent, which is a further indication that it is nearing an end to the six month easing cycle and will continue to push long-term rates lower instead. Short-term lending rates had been at a record low and other measures, such as buying government [...]
Savers disillusioned by low-interest rates should spread their tax-free ISA allowance across bonds and income-funds, Virgin Money said this week. With the Bank of England’s base rate at an all time low, Cash ISA interest rates offer meagre returns, hitting an average of 0.96% at the end of February. Meanwhile, the ongoing volatility of the [...]
Nationwide has unveiled two new five year fixed-rate bonds, paying interest at up to 4.15% gross p.a./AER. The building society yesterday launched both the Five Year Fixed Rate Bond and the Five Year e-Bond to new and existing customers. Andy McQueen, Nationwide’s savings and mortgages director, said: “I’m delighted to announce the launch of our [...]
Leeds Building Society has announced new guaranteed returns on its fixed-rate bonds, making them even more attractive for savers. The building society is offering returns of up to 3.5% gross p.a./AER on its one, two and three year fixed-rate bonds. In addition, the bonds allow ‘no penalty’ instant access to 25% of the balance at [...]
HSBC has launched two new bonds aimed at retired people. The High Interest Deposit Bonds offer 3.5% gross/AER on a three year investment, or 3.75% on a five year investment. HSBC head of savings, Richard Brown, said: “High Interest Deposit Bonds are among the most straight-forward savings vehicles on the market. “Savers know exactly where [...]
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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