TSB to close over 80 branches

26th November 2019 Consumer Collections |

TSB has announced plans to cut up to 400 jobs and close 82 branches next year as part of wider plans to save £100 million by 2022. The Spanish-owned bank currently has 540 branches. Detailing a new three-year strategic plan, Chief Executive Debbie Crosbie said the move would help deliver a 15 percentage point improvement…

Read more

Third of people paying too much in housing costs

26th November 2019 Consumer Collections |

New research reveals that 19% of people are spending more than half of their monthly net household income on housing costs such as mortgage or rent payments, utility bills and council tax, and 4% spend over 75%.  The average is 34%. The findings from Engen Group, a property business that focusses on addressing environmental challenges…

Read more

TSB publishes IT investigation review

21st November 2019 Consumer Collections |

The board of TSB has published an independent review of the bank’s 2018 migration to a new IT platform, which it commissioned from the law firm, Slaughter and May. The report has identified the issues behind an IT meltdown at TSB which left 1.9 million customers unable to access their accounts and cost the bank…

Read more

Two thirds of consumers don’t feel confident managing their money

20th November 2019 Consumer Collections |

With the annual Talk Money Talk Pensions Week underway. The Money Charity, the UK’s financial capability charity, has highlighted the low levels of confidence with money across the UK with 2 in 3 consumers admitting that they don’t feel confident about managing their money. Only 1 in 2 think that they are a confident and…

Read more

Over half of parents rely on credit cards to cover living costs at Christmas

20th November 2019 Consumer Collections |

New research from PayPlan has revealed that Christmas is so expensive that people are now struggling to pay the rest of their essential bills. The free debt help service surveyed 1,000 people about how they are managing their finances. They found that 55% of parents will rely on their credit cards to cover their essential living…

Read more

One in five consumers don’t know difference between personal and payday loans

19th November 2019 Consumer Collections |

New research by comparethemarket.com has found that one in five UK adults do not know the difference between a personal loan and payday loan. Comparethemarket.com says that payday loans have come under intense criticism for charging very high-interest rates, often with a representative APR of 1,266%, and many lenders have closed down. By contrast, personal…

Read more

HSBC launches new money management tool

18th November 2019 Consumer Collections |

HSBC has announced that it has rolled out a new feature in its retail mobile banking app that shows customers how much they could have left in their account until payday once their scheduled bills have been taken into account. Balance After Bills is the first feature to make its way into the into the…

Read more

Contactless payment figures continue to increase

18th November 2019 Consumer Collections |

Nearly a third (32 per cent) of credit card transactions and 46 per cent of debit card transactions made in the UK in August 2019 were made using contactless cards according to latest figures from UK Finance. The data shows that consumers spent £223m a day on contactless cards in August, totalling £6.9bn during the…

Read more

The Cambridge appoints new Chief Executive Officer

14th November 2019 Consumer Collections |

The Cambridge Building Society has announced Peter Burrows as its next Chief Executive Officer. Stephen Mitcham, the Society’s Chief Executive Officer for the past 12 years announced his decision to step down earlier in the year to spend more time with his family and pursue other interests. With 20 years’ experience in financial services gained…

Read more

Banks encouraged to strike balance between innovation and risk mitigation

12th November 2019 Consumer Collections |

Banks will need to strike a balance between technology innovation and risk mitigation according to a new report by HSBC. The report says that technology and data advances will enable banks to provide customers with a hyper-personalized largely automated service within the next decade, replacing the traditional retail products-based approach. But the extent of the…

Read more

Research reveals equality law can disadvantage women in credit decisions

12th November 2019 Consumer Collections |

Recent research from the University of Edinburgh Business School has revealed that including gender information in credit scoring models increases the proportion of women accepted for consumer credit without altering the predictive accuracy of these models, The reseearch suggests that women can benefit from gender being taken into consideration in automated decision-making processes, increasing their…

Read more

ELECTION: Calls on parties to use election manifestos to tackle problem debt crisis

7th November 2019 Consumer Collections |

StepChange debt charity has published the key measures that it wants the next Government to prioritise to address the harm of problem debt and to help households build greater financial resilience for the future. The StepChange election manifesto calls on each of the political parties to commit to these measures during the General Election campaign.…

Read more

ELECTION: Government urged to act on preventable problems

7th November 2019 Consumer Collections |

Citizens Advice is calling on the next government to take action to prevent some of the problems faced by over 2.5 million people who seek its help each year. As part of its 2019 election manifesto the charity is calling for major reforms across welfare, debt, housing, consumer markets and energy. Gillian Guy, Chief Executive of…

Read more