Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
Latest Bank of England (BoE) figures show that consumer borrowing rose in May, outpacing the amount repaid for the first time since August 2020. Net borrowing rose by £280 million during the month, up from a net repayment of £228 million in April. The report shows that borrowing on credit cards fell but there was…
Read more
New research has found that the ending of the furlough scheme could spell financial disaster for younger workers. From 1st July 2021, the Government will reduce the level of support given to employers under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. Currently, the Government pays 80% of an employee’s wages for any hours not worked. From Thursday,…
Read more
NatWest has announced that it is selling most of its Irish commercial lending business to Allied Irish Banks (AIB), which will take over about €4.2 billion in loans, €2.8 billion in undrawn facilities and about 280 transferred Ulster Bank employees. The exact size of the portfolio and amount payable will depend on movements in the…
Read more
New research from leading equity release lender, more2life, has revealed that over three-quarters (78%) of advisers think more of their customers will look to equity release to support basic retirement needs over the next year. More than half (59%) of advisers also think a greater number of their clients will enquire about equity release as a…
Read more
Charity, Age UK is calling on the Government to oblige banks to guarantee access to cash for everyone. While the Treasury last year promised new laws to protect access to cash and has moved to ensure people can get cashback in shops without having to buy anything from 29th June, Age UK has called for…
Read more
Consumer confidence in the housing market remains strong according to the Building Societies Association’s (BSA) latest Property Tracker survey. The survey showed that there is a growing expectation that house prices will rise, with half of the respondents (50%) expecting further price increases in the next 12 months. This compares to just a quarter of…
Read more
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has issued a formal warning to Monzo, NatWest, Virgin Money and Bank of Ireland for failing to send bank statements to 150,000 former customers. Competition rules require lenders to send customers a history of their current account banking activity within 40 days of closing their accounts. As a result…
Read more
Almost one in six people expect to be over the age of 65 by the time they repay their mortgage (15%) according to research by Opinium. The research shows that among those who were aged 55 and over and still had a mortgage, one in five expected to repay over the age of 70 (19%),…
Read more
Latest analysis of payment transactions by UK Finance has found that contactless now accounts for more than a quarter of all payments. The 2021 Payment Markets Report, an analysis of all forms of payments over 2020 showing the impact the Covid-19 pandemic and resultant lockdowns had on the nation’s payments behaviour which indicated that for…
Read more
New research from Hamptons has shown that pandemic-led forces mean it is now cheaper to rent than buy a home for the first time since December 2014. For a first-time buyer with a typical 10% deposit, it was £71 per month (or 7%) cheaper for them to rent a home in Great Britain in May…
Read more
Research by Consumer group Which? has found that not all banks are using the full technology available to them to protect customers from phishing scams. The consumer champion looked into what protections banks were putting in place to protect their customers from receiving fraudulent emails, SMS messages and phone calls. These so-called phishing attacks are…
Read more
New data from FICO has revealed the levels of consumer tolerance to new account opening security checks. With 23 percent of respondents admitting to going to a competitor financial services provider if asked to visit a branch or post documents as part of the digital application process. According to the data, if asked to visit…
Read more
Consumer spending was 7.6 per cent higher than in May two years ago according to new analysis by Barclaycard. The data from Barclaycard, which sees nearly half of the nation’s credit and debit card transactions, reveals that spending on essential items grew 11.4 per cent compared to May 2019 – the sharpest increase since before…
Read more