The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has barred some of its customers from using rival cash machines because the bank incurs a charge each time. The decision will affect almost a million people with basic bank accounts who do not have access to an overdraft or a cheque book. With immediate effect, they will only [...]
Spanish banking giant Santander has announced it will return all of its call centres to the UK from India after complaints from its customers. It will create 500 jobs as part of the process and it is the latest in a series of customer service focus initiatives from the bank. Santander has a major UK [...]
Housebuilder Redrow, which is the fifth largest housebuilder in the UK by volume, has today reported a profit for the six-month period to 31 December. The company said net income for the period was £3.5 million against a loss of £6.3 million a year earlier. Meanwhile, the company based in St. David’s Park, Wales, said [...]
Spanish banking giant Santander has admitted to sending the bank statements of thousands of customers to the wrong addresses following a printing error. The bank, which is now one of the largest on the UK High Street, said current account holders have received the first page of their own statement and pages two and three [...]
Crown Currency Exchange, which was last month placed into administration, is not expected to pay out all the cash its customers lost, since it was not covered by any of the Financial Services Authority compensation schemes. The company‘s administrators have received around 8,000 claims totalling £16.5 million but it has been revealed that customers are [...]
Metro Bank, which is Britain’s first new high street lender for more than a century, opened its doors today in Holborn, central London. The bank welcomed dogs with a bowl of water and a bone and offered their owners free breakfast. Dog lover, US billionaire and former Commerce Bank owner, Vernon Hill, said “dogs rule [...]
Senior managers of the UK’s high street banks have been labelled a “disgrace” for failing to take customer complaints seriously. The Financial Services Consumer Panel (FSCP) said the way banks handle customer complaints is “lamentable”. The comments came after a review by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) found that senior staff in the majority of [...]
A report by RBS and Natwest has found a growing number of small and medium-sized firms are suffering as their customers make late payments. While late payments can be a major headache for many companies, it can be particularly harmful to SMEs, who rely on regular incoming payments. If payments do not arrive on time, [...]
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has today found that poor advice is still being given to people switching pension funds. The findings come after a major review of the sector conducted by the FSA in 2008. The City Watchdog has raised concerns about the advice being given and, as a result, is to take enforcement [...]
Spanish banking giant, Santander, has announced it will begin to withdraw cheque guarantee cards for its customers. The move comes after the UK Payments Council announced months ago that it would axe the cheque guarantee service, which has been established for forty years, from June 2011. Santander, which owns Abbey and Alliance & Leicester, said [...]
Consumer watchdog, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), has today revealed UK banks may soon be offering customers the ability to opt out of unarranged overdraft facilities. Should the procedure be put in place, it would mean consumers would avoid hefty fees if they slipped into the red. The announcement comes as the OFT took [...]
Virgin Money, which is set to launch as a retail bank later this year, has announced it will charge a monthly fee for current account customers. However, the company said the fees will be low and will replace high overdraft charges. Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Money recently acquired regional bank Church House Trust. Virgin Money, [...]
Leeds-based independent financial advice company, Park Row Associates, has failed to give suitable advice, according to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and has therefore been ordered to pay compensation to customers. The City Watchdog has established that customers of Park Row Associates were at risk of receiving unsuitable advice about all of its financial products. [...]
The ongoing legal battle between seven high street banks and one building society could reach a conclusion today. The Supreme Court will decide whether the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has the power to assess whether or not bank charges are fair. The case, which has been ongoing for more than two years, could see [...]
Abbey and Alliance & Leicester are offering preferential mortgage rates to some existing customers. The lenders, both part of the Santander group, are enticing current account holders who have been with the banks for six months or more with new deals available in branch or on the telephone. The range includes fee-free tracker and fixed-rate [...]
Supermarket giant, Morrisons, has announced a 22% rise underlying pre-tax profits to £359 million in the six months to August 2, up from £259 million last year. The UK’s fourth largest supermarket chain said it is benefiting during the economic downturn as new customers are attracted by its prices. According to the chain, it has [...]
During the second quarter of the year, cable giant Virgin Media lost 27,000 customers, research has unveiled. However, the majority of these customers were low-value buyers of prepaid mobile services and commodity broadband. The company also highlighted that it had pushed the average customer’s spend to a record high with the average revenue per user [...]
Savers looking to stash away their cash at Tesco can secure themselves up to £15 of vouchers. Consumers opening a Tesco Instant Access Savings Account this month will be rewarded with up to 1,500 Clubcard points, equivalent to £15 of in-store vouchers, the supermarket bank said. Accounts with a balance of at least £1 on [...]
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, [...]
About | Privacy | Disclaimer | Resources | XML Feeds | Press Releases | Directory | Contact us
