‘Just about managing’ families face three years of income stagnation

23rd February 2018 Consumer Collections |

Family incomes are set to start slowly rising again next year but low and middle-income households risk missing out with three years of stagnating living standards lasting until 2020, according to the Resolution Foundation’s annual living standards outlook. The report brings together the OBR’s latest economic forecasts with policy impact assessments to show what’s in…

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ABCUL Chief Executive announces departure

22nd February 2018 Consumer Collections |

ABCUL (Association of British Credit Unions Limited) Chief Executive Mark Lyonette has announced that he will be leaving the association. Lyonette has been at the association for over 20 years. Under Lyonette’s leadership ABCUL has developed into a leading voice on issues such as financial inclusion and banking and payments reform.  The Association has secured successive…

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Single working parents working ‘let down’ as poverty increases

22nd February 2018 Consumer Collections |

A new report by charity Gingerbread analysing how single parents lives have changed has found that unsustainable work and poverty are two of the biggest issues facing the UK’s 1.7 million single-parent families. The report titled “One in four: single parent families in the UK”, finds that huge progress has been made over the past 100 years to…

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Households lose £1,200 over the past four years by not switching energy supplier

22nd February 2018 Consumer Collections |

UK households stick with the same energy supplier for an average of four years, according to new research from comparethemarket.com. This equates to many households, on average, overpaying on their energy bills by £1,232**. For some families, the overpayment could be even greater. comparethemarket.com found that nearly a third (30%) have been with their provider for five years…

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Consumers with unstable finances five times more likely to turn to high-cost credit

22nd February 2018 Consumer Collections |

UK households struggling on volatile incomes – for example those on zero-hour contracts or in part-time work – are five times more likely to turn to high-cost credit products such as rent to own and doorstep lending, new research from Citizens Advice shows. In its latest report, ‘Walking on Thin Ice’, the national charity says…

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FEATURE: Compliance needs more than good intentions

22nd February 2018 Consumer Collections |

Even the best intentions and clear strategy won’t give organisations peace of mind on GDPR compliance without the means to identify and repair system breaches. For those of us whose business owes its existence to the digital age and the proliferation of shared data, I think there’s overwhelming acceptance of the need to update the…

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UK Finance publishes regional mortgage lending figures

21st February 2018 Consumer Collections |

UK Finance has today published its figures on regional lending trends for the UK mortgage market in 2017 Q4. The figures reveal that in both Scotland and Northern Ireland, the number of first-time buyers and remortgagers have reached their highest levels for a decade. Meanwhile, the Welsh mortgage market continues to grow at a steady…

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Customer satisfaction falls in energy survey

21st February 2018 Consumer Collections |

Two small energy suppliers have left the big six energy companies trailing when it comes to customer satisfaction according to a new survey by Uswitch.com. Challenger supplier Octopus Energy, which launched in 2016 and is included in the report for the first time, takes first place for overall customer satisfaction with a score of 96%.…

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FCA announces RegTech consultation

21st February 2018 Consumer Collections |

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced that it has as launched a consultation on how technology can improve and facilitate regulatory compliance. The FCA regularly explores how technology can make our regulations more efficient and reduce the regulatory burden on firms. One of the ways we do this is through ‘TechSprints’ that bring together…

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Judge & Priestley announces FCA authorisation

20th February 2018 Outsourced Collections Services |

Judge and Priestley LLP (J&P) has announced that it has recently gained Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) authorisation. This comes in addition to its traditional authorisation and regulation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). The move to seek FCA authorisation came in response to increasing client demands for J&P Credit Solutions (J&P CS), the debt recovery…

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Money Statistics: February 2018

20th February 2018 Consumer Collections |

Here is an overview of The Money Charity’s latest statistics for February 2018: Personal debt in the UK People in the UK owed £1.572 trillion at the end of December 2017. This is up from £1.512 trillion at the end of December 2016 – an extra £1,105.77 per UK adult. Per adult in the UK that’s an average…

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Consumers defy income pressures to spend on leisure

20th February 2018 Consumer Collections |

Consumers were less constrained in their leisure spending in the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to the previous year, according to the latest findings from the Leisure Consumer Q4 2017 report by Deloitte. The quarterly survey of more than 3,000 UK adults found that 2017 ended positively for the leisure sector, with consumer spending increasing in seven…

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Call for breathing space as mental health debt crisis grows

20th February 2018 Consumer Collections |

Thousands of people with mental health issues are trapped in a spiral of escalating according to latest research by The Money and Mental Health Policy Institute. The institute said that in 2017, 23,000 people were being pursued while in hospital for mental health problems. Money and Mental Health is asking for the government to consider…

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