Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
Millions of consumers are taking on multiple forms of debt without a clear plan of how to pay it off, new research by KnowYourMoney.co.uk has revealed. The comparison website commissioned an independent, nationally-representative survey among more than 2,000 UK adults. It found that 62% of people across the country have some form of debt, with credit cards (35%),…
Read more
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has reaffirmed the regulator’s focus on affordability, business models and culture in the consumer credit sector. Speaking in London this week, Jonathan Davidson, executive director of supervision – retail and authorisations at the FCA, noted that growth in the sector has slowed, increasing 6.5% over the last 12 months, according…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
New research from comparethemarket.com has found that half of homeowners feel they have made expensive mistakes during the process of buying their first property. In a poll of over 2,000 homeowners, 15% wished they’d haggled more on the price of the house when buying their first property and 10% of respondents said they made a…
Read more
Equiniti Credit Services, a consumer credit technology and outsourced service provider, has announced the publication of its latest annual research report. A three part harmony: how regulation, data and CX are evolving consumer attitudes to credit explores the key trends impacting consumer attitudes to unsecured lending, including open banking, customer centricity, and flexibility. The sixth…
Read more
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced the final rules on the Directory – a new public register that enables consumers, firms and other stakeholders to find information on key individuals working in financial services. Publishing this information on a regular basis will empower customers to make sure they only deal with individuals whom an…
Read moreOver half (52%) of financial services customers feel that financial services firms treat consumers unfairly, according to new research by Voice of the Customer (VoC) pioneers Maru/edr. The findings are from a new study into customer treatment in the financial services industry, which interviewed 1,000 independent customers who held at least once financial product in…
Read more
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has written to credit card firms to highlight the findings of its multi-firm review of fees and charges in prime and sub-prime credit card products and firms. It shared the findings of its review with participant firms and a number of changes have been made to how customers are charged…
Read more
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…
Read moreBritish banks are being hit by more than one major IT or security failure that stops customers from making payments every day, a Which? Money investigation has found. In the most comprehensive analysis carried out since banks started disclosing serious IT glitches last year, the consumer champion found there were 302 incidents that prevented customers…
Read more
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is considering changes to the way in which commission works in the motor finance sector after uncovering serious concerns about the way in which lenders are choosing to reward car retailers and other credit brokers. The findings form part of the final report of the FCA’s work on motor finance…
Read more
Loans specialist 1st Stop Group has joined the London Stock Exchange Group’s international business support and capital raising ecosystem platform called ELITE. 1st Stop Group offers car finance loans, secured second charge mortgages and unsecured personal loans to UK customers, serving customers who are not able or not wishing to borrow from high street lenders.…
Read more