Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
Citizens Advice is warning that debt is the looming problem of the pandemic. As the one-year marker since lockdown began approaches, the charity has charted a worrying increase in the need for advice, food bank referrals and charitable grants. The charity’s 12 months of pandemic data maps the waves of demand for different types of…
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A new report by the Resolution Foundation has found that half of the workers had a real-terms pay cut in the year to autumn 2020. The Foundation’s report examines what has really happened to pay packets during the pandemic last year, with the official Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) series having been hugely disrupted by widespread…
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Families with children have been hit hardest financially by the Covid-19 pandemic according to research by Standard Life Foundation. The analysis published finds that over a quarter of UK families (27%) are currently living on a reduced income as a direct result of a pandemic-related loss of earnings, compared with 17% of households without children.…
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Almost one year on from the UK’s first national lockdown, UK Finance has outlined key statistics on the impact of the banking and finance industry’s support for businesses and customers across the country over the last twelve months. 2.75 million mortgage payment holidays were granted up until the end of 2020, with 1.8 million in…
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Nearly one in five of homeowners (19%) have been unable to remortgage their home since the pandemic started and could now face higher monthly mortgage repayments as a result, according to research by comparethemarket.com. The impact of the pandemic on employment and financial stability has meant that many households have become ineligible for competitive fixed-rate…
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The low levels of disposable income for when Covid restrictions end have been highlighted by AA Financial Services research. The research found took a look at the health of the nation’s finances to see where people’s money goes each month and found that 88% of people’s paychecks are fully committed, leaving only 12% of their…
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UK households have repaid a record £17.6 billion of mortgage debt in just three months, equivalent to £192m a day, as savings made under lockdown helped some existing borrowers to reduce their debt commitments. Analysis of official data by the Equity Release Council, the representative trade body for the equity release sector, shows a surge in…
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New figures released by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show that consumer finance new business fell in January 2021 by 34% compared with the same month in 2020. The retail store and online credit sector reported new business 1% lower in January than in the same month in 2020. By contrast, credit card and…
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Analysis of the latest debit card data from Lloyds Bank has found that as the UK approaches one year living with Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, 55% of customers’ money was spent online by the end of February 2021, compared to 38% in February 2020. For those who continue to spend away from their homes, the median…
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Older women are one and a half times as likely to have seen their financial and mental health decline during the pandemic than men according to research by SunLife. The company’s report ‘Exploring the impact of the pandemic on Over 50s’ also found that older women are more likely than men to have seen their…
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Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced the extension of several Covid-19 support schemes until the end of September, including the furlough scheme, self-employed income and an extension of the universal credit uplift as part of his budget announcement. In response to the budget debt charity StepChange says that the budget announcement extends much-needed support for people…
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The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted a sharp increase in one-off purchases, with more than half of consumers (53%) spending out on an item worth over £200 that they wouldn’t have normally bought, according to research from Indesser, a joint venture between the Cabinet Office and TDX Group. A further third of people (31%) treated themselves…
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New analysis shows that over 1 million more people will be living on an income with which they can’t afford to meet everyday needs by May compared to last September, even if the £20 uplift to Universal Credit is extended in the budget according to New Economics Foundation (NEF). The report says that, in May,…
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