Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
The value of loans taken out from pawnbrokers has increased 41% in just a year, from £158 million in 2021 to £223 million in 2022 according to research by international audit, tax, and advisory firm Mazars. The figures also show that arrears on pawnbroker loans, high-interest loans secured with a personal item held as a…
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New research has revealed the impact rising mortgage costs are having on people’s mental health, as well as their finances. Findings from Mind, the mental health charity, show almost a third (29 per cent) of people (almost 14 million) in England and Wales have been affected by hearing about or experiencing increasing mortgage costs…
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Inflation fell to 7.9% in June, from 8.7% in May, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The price rises, as measured by the consumer prices index (CPI), at the lowest rate since March 2022. The fall in inflation exceeds analysts’ expectations, with a dip to 8.2% having been forecast. The ONS said falling…
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Latest quarterly figures from the Insolvency Service for England & Wales have indicated that personal insolvency numbers increased by 29%, when compared ro June 2022 with 643 bankruptcies registered. There were 2,320 Debt Relief Orders (DROs), which was 21% higher than June 2022. There were, on average, 6,026 Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs) registered per month…
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New data from StepChange Scotland has revealed that around one in five (19%) mortgaged clients were in mortgage arrears in the second quarter of this year, up from almost one in seven (15%) in the second quarter of 2022. This is alongside a year-on-year rise in the proportion of mortgaged clients, which is up from…
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Which?’s June consumer insight tracker found that 1.3 million households missed or defaulted on a household bill payment – such as an energy, water or council tax bill – in the month to June. Missed bill payments have been consistently high since January 2022, showing just how many are struggling to make ends meet every…
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A new poll from Savanta, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, has found that one in two mortgage borrowers fear losing their homes as a result of interest rates growth. The poll found that 46% of mortgage borrowers worried about losing their home with six in ten mortgage borrowers worried about cutting down on food bills…
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Between January 2020 and March 2023, the proportion of clients accessing debt advice who have a car finance debt has risen by 14.8%. In the same period, the average balance of a client’s car finance debt has increased by more than 20%, from £8,077 to £9,705. The charity’s research also found that clients with car finance debt tend to…
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Inflation ignorance and rate confusion is ruining financial resilience according to research by Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) and Opinium. The research found that those who understand inflation are more likely to be financially resilient than those who say they don’t. Those who say they understand inflation, but prove to be wrong, have even lower financial resilience.…
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New IFS research, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), shows that 48% of 50- to 70-year-olds who had recently left the workforce in 2020–21 ended up in relative poverty. This was significantly higher than the percentage of individuals who were in poverty after leaving the workforce in pre-pandemic years – even though overall poverty…
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One in five (3.4 million) people aged 50-69 and one in twelve of over 70s (670,000) in the UK have had to borrow more money or use more credit than usual in the last month compared to a year ago, new research by Age UK has found. The analysis showed that 1.3 million over 50s have a…
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New research by Hargreaves Lansdown has found that one in four spending more than they have earnt creating a risk of running up debts. The study also found that higher-income households are borrowing more as a percentage of their income – and have a bigger share of their borrowing on variable rates and are more…
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has made rulebook changes in an effort to grant households relief from rising mortgage rates. Lenders will be able to offer borrowers a switch to interest-only payments for six months. They will also be able to offer an extension to mortgage terms to reduce monthly payments, with borrowers given the…
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