Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
The Bank of England has published its latest Money and Credit statistics, showing consumer credit growth slowed to 6.4 percent in the past year as consumer credit increased by £0.5 billion in March, the lowest increase since November 2013. The weakness was largely due to a fall in new lending for car finance. Outstanding balances…
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a reminder to authorised firms that they need to start preparing today for the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR) to be ready for the new regulation coming into effect on 9th December 2019. The FCA has already rolled out the SM&CR to banks and insurance firms, and…
Read moreUK Asset Resolution (UKAR), has confirmed that it has agreed to sell two separate portfolios of residential owner-occupied mortgages and unsecured loans to Citi for a total of £4.9 billion. The majority of financing for the transaction is being provided by PIMCO. Financial completion is expected within the next few weeks and will enable UKAR…
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The Bank of England has published its latest Money & Credit report which shows that the annual growth of consumer’s borrowing on credit cards and as other loans continued to slow, though at a more gradual pace than the second half of 2018. Whilst annual growth of bank lending to businesses fell in February for…
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The Scottish government risks missing its child poverty targets by some distance as poverty levels are set to rise rather than fall over the next five years, according to new analysis published by the Resolution Foundation. The analysis shows that, following large falls in the 2000s, relative child poverty has been rising since 2011-12. The…
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With weeks to go until Brexit, the impact the UK’s exit will have on the economy is still unclear for many, yet recent research from Just Group found some British consumers have a sense of optimism about their finances over the next year. Despite declining confidence in the economy and property market, the research reveals…
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A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) has found that the four main regulators – Ofwat, Ofgem, Ofcom and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – understand the significant difficulties facing consumers across utilities, communications and financial services markets, but cannot prove if they are effectively responding to consumer concerns or offering enough protection for…
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Contactless transactions have risen 31 percent year-on-year in 2018, to latest data from banking trade body UK Finance. The current payment limit with a contactless card is £30, more than which a Pin must be used. But an increase in usage throughout 2018 is expected to lead to an increase in that maximum, although those…
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Almost one in four SMEs see political uncertainty as one of the biggest obstacles facing their business, according to a major survey of over 4,500 small firms. The latest BVA BDRC SME Finance Monitor has found that 24 percent of SMEs now see political uncertainty as a major barrier to their business going forward, up…
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New research from Experian has identified 5.8 million people in the UK who are virtually invisible to the credit economy because there is little or no information available on their financial track record. In the absence of sufficient information to make a decision, these Invisibles can either be excluded from mainstream financial services or be…
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Mortgage arrears would soar by 30% over the next three years in the event of a no-deal Brexit, according to data modelling by Kensington Mortgages, the specialist mortgage lender. Using its proprietary risk modelling tool, Vector, Kensington’s analysts tested a series of scenarios based on a representative data set of 750,000 loans (with an outstanding…
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New figures released by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show consumer finance new business in January was at a similar level to the same month in 2018. Credit card and personal loan new business together fell in January by 3% compared with the same month in 2018, while retail store and online credit new…
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Consumer spending grew by 1.2 percent year-on-year in February, equating to a decline in real terms when adjusting for inflation according to new data from Barclaycard, which sees nearly half of the nation’s credit and debit card transactions, shows that essential expenditure rose by 2.3 percent, propped up by relatively modest growth in supermarkets of…
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