BBA announces vulnerable customers access strategy

7th June 2017 Personal Insolvency |

The British Bankers’ Association (BBA) has published principles to improve customer access. The principles have been developed by the BBA’s third party access working party to improve customer access under the vulnerability taskforce principle 5 (easy for friends and family to support). The principles relate to legal instruments for third-party access, including guardianship and intervention…

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BNP Paribas acquires Swedish consumer credit business

5th June 2017 Consumer Collections |

BNP Paribas Personal Finance has acquired  Swedish consumer finance company SevenDay Finans. Sevenday will become part of Ekspres Bank, a commercial brand of BNP Paribas Personal Finance in this region. Ekspres Bank is part of BNP Paribas’s Scandinavian division. Operating in Norway and Denmark since July 2014 under the brand Ekspres Bank which was acquired…

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Metro Bank acquires mortgage portfolio

2nd June 2017 Consumer Collections |

Metro Bank has announced that it has completed the purchase of a portfolio of UK mortgages from Cerberus European Residential Holdings for £596.7 million. All lending in the Portfolio is secured on property, well diversified across the UK, and has a similar credit risk profile to Metro Bank’s current mortgage book. The Portfolio consists of…

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Debit card payments set to overtake cash in 2018

31st May 2017 Consumer Collections |

Rapid growth in the use of contactless cards means cash will be overtaken as Britain’s most frequently used payment method by the end of 2018, according to a new report published by Payments UK, the trade association for the payments industry. This latest forecast still does not herald the demise of cash – even in…

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Bank of Ireland fined €3.15 million for AML breach

30th May 2017 Consumer Collections |

Irish regulator, The Central Bank of Ireland has fined the Bank of Ireland (BOI) €3,150,000 by the Central Bank of Ireland in respect of anti-money laundering (AML) and terrorist financing compliance failures. The Central Bank of Ireland reprimanded BOI for twelve breaches of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering & Terrorist Financing) Act, 2010 (the ‘CJA…

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Managing finances as stressful as exams

26th May 2017 Consumer Collections |

New research from Which? University reveals that undergraduate students find managing finances as stressful as exams. A survey of over 2000 undergraduate students at UK universities shows that one in seven (15%) rank managing finances as the most stressful aspect of their university experience, alongside exams (15%) and almost as stressful as coursework (18%). The figures…

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Consumer Credit grows by 6.4% in April

25th May 2017 Consumer Collections |

The British Bankers Association (BBA) latest high street banking data shows that consumer credit growth was 6.4% in April, compared with 6.1% in the previous month. Gross mortgage borrowing totalled £13.4 billion in April.* Net mortgage borrowing was 2.4% higher than a year ago. Eric Leenders, BBA Managing Director for Retail Banking said “As the…

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Building Societies maintain high market-share in mortgage market

24th May 2017 Consumer Collections |

Building Societies continued to approve one in three new mortgages across the UK in the first three months of 2017, and to provide a third of loans made to first time buyers according to latest statistics provided by the Building Societies Association (BSA). Gross lending by the sector was down 15% compared to last year…

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More than a million cancel credit & debit cards due to fraud

24th May 2017 Consumer Collections |

More than one in ten (12%) Britons have had to cancel a credit or debit card in the past year due to online fraud, according to new research by comparethemarket.com. The latest statistics show a worsening state of affairs when it comes to cybercrime, with the number of people cancelling cards rising from 4.5 million…

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Payment card spending in March 2017 increases by £335 million

23rd May 2017 Consumer Collections |

The UK Cards Association has released its latest car expenditure statistics for March 2017 Highlights from the statistics include: Payment card spending in March 2017 was £57.8 billion, up by £335 million (0.6 per cent) on February Contactless payments amounted to 32 per cent of card purchases, an increase from 15 per cent a year…

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Bank of Ireland appoints new CEO

19th May 2017 Consumer Collections |

Bank of Ireland Group has announced the appointment of Francesca McDonagh as Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO). She will succeed Richie Boucher who steps down later this year. Ms McDonagh will also take up the position of Executive Director on the Board of the Group on 2 October 2017. McDonagh joins Bank of Ireland from…

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Home buyers decrease 12% on last year

17th May 2017 Consumer Collections |

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has published its latest home buyer figures. The highlights of thre report include: Home buyers borrowed £11.2bn, up 24% on February but down 19% on March 2016. This came to 61,700 loans, up 27% on February but down 12% on March 2016. First-time buyers borrowed £4.9bn for home-owner house…

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1.4 million households struggling to pay their mortgage

17th May 2017 Consumer Collections |

Research by L&C Mortgages has revealed that 1.4 million UK households are struggling to pay their mortgage and 2.6 million people think their monthly mortgage payments are too high. Over half (58%) have never remortgaged for a better deal, as highlighted in L&C’s ongoing campaign to get homeowners to save as much as they possibly…

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