Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has announced a 9.5% rise in complaints it received about financial products in the last six months of 2022. FOS received 79,921 compared to almost 72,978 in the first six months of 2022 (H1 2022). new complaints between the start of July and the end of December, compared to the…
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Ahead of The Bank of England’s next interest rate move, TotallyMoney and Moneycomms calculate the cost of the two most likely interest rate scenarios and the impact on borrowers with a variable rate mortgage. The research has found that 5.2 million mortgages will have been exposed to changes in interest rates from the beginning of…
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Research by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has found that one in four (26%) of savers are taking more risks with their money in an effort to land bigger returns amid the cost-of-living crisis. A poll of 4,000 adults saw 23% of consumers with a pension say they have either decreased the percentage they…
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Gifts and loans from the Bank of Mum and Dad totalled £8.8 billion in 2022, according to the latest analysis from property firm Savills. This amount has increased by almost £4 billion since the start of the pandemic (2019), as a result of a more stringent mortgage market and higher deposit requirements. In total, 170,000…
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Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) Chief Executive Abby Thomas says the ombudsman would like to improve its communications with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to help the regulator respond quicker to emerging issues in the financial sector. The Chief Ombudsman told the Treasury Select Committee that while she is satisfied with the level of powers the…
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The monthly cost of owning a home for first-time buyers is now £971, £42 (4%) lower than the cost of renting the equivalent property, according to the latest Halifax Owning vs Renting Review. The analysis, which is based on housing costs for first-time buyers with a mortgage on a three-bed home compared to the average…
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Latest Bank of England data has revealed that in the last three months of 2022, mortgages agreed for the coming months were down by a third (33.5%) from the previous three months, and down a quarter (24.5%) in a year, excluding the onset of the pandemic when the market was effectively closed, this is the…
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Latest data by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show that consumer car finance new business volumes fell in January 2023 by 3% compared with the same month in 2022. The corresponding value of new business fell by 5% over the same period. In the twelve months to January 2023, new business grew 5% by…
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UK Finance has released its latest Household Finance Review which showed a decline in consumer confidence and a drop in mortgage applications in Quarter 4 (Q4) 2022. Following the September 2022 mini budget consumer confidence fell below already-low levels. Despite the concerns of households about their finances, overall card spending remained steady in Q4. However,…
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New figures released by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show that consumer finance new business grew by 1% in January 2023 compared with the same month in 2022. In the twelve months to January 2023, new business was 10% higher than in the same period in 2022. The retail store and online credit sector…
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Soaring interest rates and a rise in house prices drove up the cost of a typical first-time buyer’s mortgage repayments by almost two thirds last year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). In the 12 months to December 2022, the typical monthly bill rose by £481 to £1,262, an increase of 61%. The…
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New IFS research, funded by the Nuffield Foundation has found that the pensions gap between men and women in private pension income will persist for decades. However, among those born in the early 1950s, the difference between men’s and women’s average state pension incomes has closed to essentially zero. This is in contrast to those…
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Consumer card spending grew just 5.9 per cent year-on-year in February, below the latest CPIH inflation rate of 8.8 per cent, owing to a reduction in discretionary purchases amidst the ongoing the cost-of-living squeeze according to latest data from Barclays. Growth rates were also impacted by the lifting of Omicron Plan B restrictions last year,…
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