A proposal to set up a fund to compensate victims of bank scams has been rejected by payments group Pay.UK. Pay UK says that there has been no industry consensus to finance a central fund. A voluntary code requiring banks to reimburse affected customers is funded to the end of December so from January it…
The Money Advice Trust, has published a new guide to support car dealership staff improve support for customers in vulnerable circumstances. The dealership guide ‘Customer vulnerability: decision-making when purchasing a vehicle’ provides practical tools and processes staff can use when engaging with customers. Written by the Money Advice Trust’s Vulnerability experts, Chris Fitch and Colin…
The latest ONS employment figures showed that the rise in the number of self-employed people in the last year was greater than the rise in the number of employed people (an annual rise of 195,000 to September, compared with a rise of 110,000 employed people). The proportion of all workers who are self-employed is now…
Households struggling to pay their council tax are being pushed into further debt as outdated regulations see councils resort to bailiffs to collect arrears, says Citizens Advice in its latest research. Citizens Advice says under current rules when people miss a single council tax payment they automatically became liable for the full year’s bill. The…
Nine out of 10 business owners across construction suffer a range of mental health issues due to payment and other business pressures, according to a survey run by leading engineering services trade bodies BESA and ECA. The new survey, conducted in association with 25 other construction trade bodies, found that business owners have an array…
Energy regulator, Ofgem has called for insolvency firms to treat customers more fairly when they are left in debt when energy companies collapse. Fourteen small energy firms have exited the domestic energy market since 2018. Toto Energy became the seventh small supplier to go out of business this year in October – just three months…
StepChange debt charity has published the key measures that it wants the next Government to prioritise to address the harm of problem debt and to help households build greater financial resilience for the future. The StepChange election manifesto calls on each of the political parties to commit to these measures during the General Election campaign.…
Citizens Advice is calling on the next government to take action to prevent some of the problems faced by over 2.5 million people who seek its help each year. As part of its 2019 election manifesto the charity is calling for major reforms across welfare, debt, housing, consumer markets and energy. Gillian Guy, Chief Executive of…
A decade of low pay has driven working families deep into the red, and in nominal terms, household debt has risen 1.5 times faster than wages since 2010. according to new analysis published by the TUC. Real wages in the North East still haven’t recovered to their 2008 levels – the longest pay squeeze in centuries.…
New figures released by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show that the second charge mortgage market has reported that volumes are up by 20% in September Commenting on the latest new business figures for the second charge mortgage market, Fiona Hoyle, Interim Director General of the FLA, said “The second charge mortgage market reported…