Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
NatWest has unveiled a £40m support package for customers as it looks to cushion the impact from the soaring cost of living. The bank’s plans include extending the time it takes to repay an unsecured loan or overdraft if payments are missed from 18 months to two years. NatWest will give firms cash back on…
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New research from Citizens Advice found that 3.2 million people across Great Britain ran out of credit on their prepayment meter last year because they couldn’t afford to top up. That’s one person every 10 seconds – cut off from their energy supply as the cost-of-living crisis left people struggling to keep the lights on.…
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has warned that more than 750,000 households are at risk of defaulting on their mortgages over the next two years as soaring borrowing costs make payments unaffordable. The financial regulator said that over 200,000 households had already fallen behind on payments by the end of June 2022 – with bills…
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Qatari-owned Al Rayan Bank has been fined £4.02 million (£4,023,600) by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which uncovered multiple failings between April 2015 and November 2017. The Knightsbridge branch of the Shariah-compliant bank accepted cash deposits of hundreds of thousands of pounds without doing proper anti-money-laundering (AML) and terrorist financing checks. It failed to carry…
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Water retailers have been encouraged of the need to go the extra mile to help businesses and boost customer satisfaction by the Consumer Council for Water (CCW). The research, conducted every two years, shows that overall satisfaction has declined for both water and sewerage services – from 91% to 88% and from 88% to 82%…
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New research has revealed that 1.6 million people who have identified themselves as vulnerable were pressured into taking out credit or services for someone else, in last 12 months. Undertaken for the Vulnerability Registration Service (VRS), the research has highlighted that in the past 12 months, 5% of UK adults (2.7 million people) have been…
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Over a third (34%) of UK shoppers have now used Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services to spread the cost of purchases1, and thousands chose to use BNPL for the first time over the 2022 festive season. That’s according to the latest BNPL Barometer from Equifax, one of the UK’s big three credit reference agencies.…
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is proposing to update guidance, introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic, to support insurance customers in financial difficulty. As part of the FCA’s ongoing work to help protect customers during the current cost of living squeeze, this will provide clarity to firms about how they should support all struggling customers, not…
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One in five people (over 12 million) now borrowing to pay for food and other essential bills, with half doing so for the first time according to research by Money and Pensions Service, The survey of 2,180 UK adults, carried out by the Money and Pensions Service, shows that one in five (23%) have relied…
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