Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
A Select Committee on Financial Exclusion has called on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Banks to give greater priority to tackling financial exclusion in the UK. With more than 1.7 million people in the UK without a bank account and 40% of the working age population with less than £100 in savings, the Committee asks them to end…
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West Lothian Council has launched a self-help guide for people who are at risk of repossession or facing eviction from their home. The West Lothian Court Advice Project is available to help anyone who, potentially, may face eviction as a result of non-payment of debts and is about to go to court. The Scottish Legal…
Read moreUK consumer debt now stands at £240 billion according to new insight from. Almost three quarters (73 per cent) of UK adults admit they currently have some form of unsecured borrowing, such as personal loan, bank overdraft or credit card, with a third (33 per cent) of those admitting they rely on credit to get…
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Britain is on course for an unprecedented 15 years of spending cuts and lost pay growth, according to the Resolution Foundation’s overnight analysis of Budget 2017. The report finds that despite the Budget day focus on short term forecast improvements, the date for achieving an overall budget surplus has been pushed back until 2025. Average…
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Following the announcement of today’s Budget the Money Advice Trust has suggested that a year of pressure lies ahead for UK households. Joanna Elson OBE, Chief Executive of the Money Advice Trust, the charity that runs National Debtline and Business Debtline, said: “While the economy is performing better than expected, the OBR’s forecasts point to a year…
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Accountant in Bankruptcy (AiB) has appointed respected insolvency sector figure Mike Norris to its Advisory Board. Norris joins AiB as a non-executive board member to offer independent challenge and professional expertise to the Executive Agency of the Scottish Government. Since 2008, Norris has headed up the UK, Canadian and Dutch operations for Max Recovery, the leading…
Read moreA Court of Appeal decision handed down earlier in the week has significant implications for thousands of personal insolvency procedures, says insolvency trade body R3. The Court of Appeal’s judgment in the case of Green v Wright has clarified what should happen to payment protection insurance (PPI) refunds paid to people who have completed an…
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The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)’s forecast for average earnings projects that median household income will not grow at all for the next two years. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has calculated the future effects of the economic downtown indicating that following on from the deep recession and already-tepid recovery, this would leave median…
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New research from Which? has found that nearly five million working people in the UK are worried about their financial situation. Overall, 28% of all UK households said they were experiencing some form of financial distress, be it relying more on overdrafts and loans or struggling to pay bills. When Which? looked at working households that…
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British adults say that their personal or household finances are the most likely factor, from a list of common causes of stress and anxiety, to have a negative impact on their mental health, according to a new survey of over 2,000 people by insolvency and restructuring trade body R3 and ComRes. A quarter (24%) of British…
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Today sees the launch of the new Standard Financial Statement (SFS), an initiative designed to bring greater consistency to the way organisations assess people’s finances when they are in debt. The SFS, the launch of which has been co-ordinated by the Money Advice Service, will be adopted by all major debt advice providers across commercial and…
Read moreMore than half a million (590,000) Brits holding at least one kind of interest-bearing debt are paying more than they need to by not moving to a better deal, according to new research by TSB. Almost 5 million British adults owe between £7,500 and £25,000, and TSB calculates that more than half a million of these…
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Government calculations have forecast an additional 18,000 people will go insolvent by 2020 should interest rates rise just 1%, according to figures released exclusively to Moore Stephens. Moore Stephens says that the Bank of England has come under recent scrutiny from the Treasury Select Committee and senior government figures, with record-low interest rates accused of…
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