30/04/2007 by Dave.

New research from Abbey Current Accounts reveals that 7.5 million Brits - or 12% - keep a sneaky CASHFLO or ‘Current Account Secretly Hidden From Loved Ones’.

25-34 year olds are most likely to keep their finances secret, whilst 16-24s are least secretive, followed by the 55+ age group. Meanwhile, people in North East have the highest number of CASHFLOs, followed by the North West and London. The bottom three CASHFLO regions are Scotland, the South West and Yorkshire.

Steve Shore, Head of Banking, at Abbey, makes the point that whether or not you keep your actual account itself secret there are some things you should always keep to yourself. For example, never share your chip and pin with anyone - even if you share a joint account with someone. And never quote all your security details over the phone as no bank staff will ever ask you to.

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26/04/2007 by Dave.

Demand for rented houses and flats in at the highest level ever recorded, according to new figures.

The most recent survey of landlords from Paragon Mortgages found that 92 per cent were seeing ’stable’, ‘growing’ or ‘booming’ demand from prospective tenants looking for rented accommodation.

Furthermore, rental properties are on average currently empty for less than three weeks a year.

“We have been running this survey for five years and have seen a very strong trend of growing tenant demand throughout this period,” said John Heron, director of Paragon Mortgages.

“But recently, in both our own research and that of others, we’ve seen demand for private rented accommodation hit new peaks. Demographic influences that underpin the private rented sector are all continuing to rise, which bodes well for continued healthy growth of the buy-to-let sector,” he added.

These figures suggest that booming property prices are making it more difficult for many people to get onto the housing ladder.

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25/04/2007 by Dave.

Parents in the UK are no longer happy to give their children financial hand-outs, as increasing numbers are looking after their own personal finance situation and are asking for loans to be repaid.

A study carried out by Scottish Widows found that the number of parents who require their offspring to pay back the financial assistance lent to them has doubled in the last ten years.

In addition to this, just 32 per cent of mums and dads will now give cash to their kids compared to 38 per cent a decade ago.

Despite this, parents continue to lend their children a significant sum - some £2.1 billion was borrowed by offspring in the last ten years - with on average £12,188 being lent each time.

“It is clear that it is becoming more and more difficult for graduates to get on the property ladder without any assistance and with rising interest rates and house prices they need all the help they can get,” Richard Clark from Scottish Widows said.

“While it’s good to see that people are getting help from their loved ones, some of these loans might be leaving the Bank of Mum and Dad empty.”

The study found that 89 per cent of children who borrowed from their parents put the money towards a deposit on a house.

A recent study from Halifax revealed that average house prices have now exceeded £100,000 in all areas of the UK.

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24/04/2007 by Dave.

The Financial Services Authority has told insurers they must improve their standards of cold calling when selling some general insurance products over the telephone, it said on Wednesday.The overall quality of sales practices in relation to personal accident insurance, health cash plans and accident and sickness insurance when customers were cold-called was “unacceptably low”, the FSA said.

“The quality of cold calling in general insurance was disappointing — consumers were pressurised and the benefits of the product were sometimes exaggerated,” Vernon Everitt, FSA director of Retail Themes, said in a statement.

“We expect to see significant improvements when consumers are cold called,” Everitt said.

The watchdog said its review of 43 firms’ telephone sales practices found weak oversight by supervisors and team leaders in call centres.

The FSA said those firms it had visited had acted quickly to improve practices and it was following up with other firms which use cold calling as part of their sales strategy.

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23/04/2007 by Dave.

Banco Halifax Hispania has launched a new ’switch and save’ campaign, which will enable British expatriates with property in Spain to transfer their mortgage to the bank without paying any switching costs.

The bank says it will meet the customer’s transfer costs, which will include associated legal fees, notary fees, valuation fee, arrangement fees and registration fees. It will also pay 0.5% towards any early repayment fee charged by the existing lender. The valuation fee will be collected and refunded on completion of the transfer. These terms only apply to the transfer of the existing loan. If a release of equity is required, costs relating to the further loan, i.e. the deed and the notary fee, will be payable by the customer.

All dealings between Banco Halifax Hispania and its customers can be carried out in English. Moreover, the bank has an approved panel of qualified solicitors and surveyors in the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca regions that should, in theory, be able to help with all aspects of the transfer.

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22/04/2007 by Dave.

With immediate effect all claims management companies will now be regulated by the Department for Constitutional Affairs. Known in the trade as ‘ambulance chasers’ those firms authorised to provide the regulated services must follow strict rules of conduct. This will ensure that consumers are given clear information about the options available for pursuing their claim. If an authorised person fails to comply with the rules, the Regulator will be able to take disciplinary action.

The regulation is intended to help: reduce malpractice including high pressure selling; stop unauthorised marketing activity in hospitals; reduce misleading advertising; deliver clearer and more transparent contracts; and ensure that authorised persons have a clear mechanism for dealing with consumer complaints.

Around 800 organisations have so far been authorised, and the authorisation process is continuing for applications received after the initial deadline of February 16th.

Consumers will be able to check if a company is authorised by using the search facility for authorised persons provided on the Claims Management Regulation website at www.claimsregulation.gov.uk.

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22/04/2007 by Dave.

Scottish Life is making a last call for former members to get in touch if they had an eligible policy at the time of the company’s demutualisation in 2001, as they may be entitled to a payment of £500 for loss of membership.

In accordance with the scheme particulars set out at the time, such compensation payments must be finalised by July 1st 2007, six years after the date of demutualisation. After this time, there will be no entitlement for compensation payments for loss of membership.

A web-based service at www.scottishlife.co.uk/slmembership has been set up to deal with enquiries.

There are currently around 15,000 former members of Scottish Life who are still eligible for compensation, representing a total amount of unclaimed payments of approximately £7.5 million.

Following the demutualisation, owner Royal London put in place a three stage tracing procedure for tracking down former Scottish Life members who had not responded to earlier multiple mailings:

In the first instance, members were traced via banks, building societies and IFAs.

The second stage involved an exercise conducted through the Department for Work and Pensions, using their database.

Finally, Scottish Life worked with an external specialist tracing agency from August 2004 to March 2006 and, for this purpose, subscribed annually to the Unclaimed Asset Register, utilising this to find previously untraced members.

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20/04/2007 by Dave.

Mounting affordability worries have caused mortgage lenders to turn down more than 460,000 applicants in the past six months alone, according to a survey.Some 463,000 people were refused a mortgage in the half-year to mid-March, with applicants aged 18-34 the worst affected, the research by financial comparison Web site MoneyExpert.com found.

House prices rose at their fastest annual rate in nearly two years in February, boosted again by London’s booming property market, government data showed on Monday.Three Bank of England base rate hikes since August last year have also seen the cost of borrowing soar.

The base rate has risen to 5.25 percent from 4.5 percent. That has added around 750 pounds to the annual cost of an average 100,000 pound variable rate mortgage.

With another interest rate rise widely anticipated next month, the number of rejected applications could mount.

Sean Gardner, chief executive of MoneyExpert.com, said: “Affordability is the major issue in the mortgage market as recent reports of a drop in the number of first-time buyers demonstrate.

 ”(But) the fact that around 77,000 mortgage applications are being rejected a month means it is likely that it is not only first-timers who are being hit.

“Lenders, quite reasonably, do not want to take risks when there are pressures on how much people can afford.”

The number of first-time buyers is at its lowest level for two years, according to recent figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

Interest-only loans and 100 percent mortgages could help those struggling to take their first footsteps on the housing ladder, while homeowners looking to raise money could consider secured borrowing, said Gardner.YouGov interviewed 2,291 British adults for the survey.

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16/04/2007 by Dave.

With around £15 billion or so lying around going to waste in dormant accounts, many financial organisations have started campaigns to reunite customers with their cash before it gets reinvested in society by the government. Halifax recently started a campaign to remind customers about their forgotten accounts. In some cases where the amount is more than £1,000, Halifax is employing search agents, at its own expense, to find the owners. It said it has £44 million held in 110,000 old and unused savings and bank accounts and some of it could be yours.

If you think you have mislaid funds, you should first contact the organisation concerned or if you can’t remember who it was, you could try one of the free services that have been launched by the British Bankers Association and the Building Societies Association.

You can also contact the Association of Friendly Societies for old mutual or friendly society policies or the Unclaimed Assets Register traces investments, and unclaimed life and pensions policies but it charges a fee of £18 for each search, of which 10% goes to charity.

One of the main reasons why we lose contact with our cash is failure to tell our financial providers about our new address when we move home. Easy enough to overlook but it could be an expensive omission. Next time you move, don’t forget to list write to financial providers about new address on your checklist of things to do.

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15/04/2007 by Dave.

National charity, Citizens Advice, is giving people the chance to have their say on the problems they’ve experienced, through an online survey on the national charity’s website - www.adviceguide.org.uk.

The survey, which runs throughout April, asks about tax credits and any problems people may have encountered with their claim, such as difficulties in understanding the award notice and whether the award was correct.

Other questions aim to find out whether people have been overpaid tax credits, the reasons and how easy it was to understand or challenge the decision. Citizens Advice says it’s keen to know if the experience would deter people from claiming again in the future.

The answers will help shape the charity’s evidence designed to improve the Government’s track record on tax credits.

Last year Citizens Advice Bureaux across the UK dealt with more than 150,000 tax credit problems. In many of the cases, overpayments were the result of unacceptable levels of official error, or a failure to act on the information provided when people report a change in circumstances that would affect their entitlement.

Citizens Advice social policy officer John Wheatley said: “Some families have been left seriously out of pocket and confused because they are being asked to pay back tax credits, which they believed they were entitled to.”

“The results of the survey will give us a clearer idea of how people have been affected and what they think should be done.”

In June 2005, a report from Citizens Advice found that the operation of the tax credit system and the way overpayments were recovered caused huge hardship and confusion to many families It argued that major improvements in the administration of the scheme and changes in the recovery of overpayments were crucial if confidence in the scheme were to be restored.

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