Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
Freedom Finance has announced that it has extended its relationship with Koyo. The new agreement will mean that customers declined for loans from Koyo will automatically be able to connect to Freedom Finance’s proprietary matching marketplace. The integration will link up declined customers to a panel containing over 100 of the UK’s leading lenders and…
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Homeowners borrowed £6.2 billion against the value of their properties through equity release in 2022, with this marking a 29% increase on 2021’s total latest Equity Release Council figures have indicated. The figures show that the total has more than doubled in size since 2017, when £3.06 billon was released. The number of owners who…
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Analysis from Freedom Finance has found that Credit Unions are lending record sums to borrowers in the UK as the cost of borrowing continues to rise. The latest Freedom Finance Credit Monitor revealed that average household quoted rates on credit cards hit 22.46%, their highest levels since 1998, while personal loans posted their highest quarterly…
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Latest Bank of England (BoE) data has shown that consumers borrowed an additional £500 million in consumer credit in December, with this a steep drop on the £1.5 billion borrowed in November and below the previous six-month average of £1.2 billion. Net credit card repayments came in at £0.5 billion, while £1 billion of borrowing…
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A new study from Juniper Research has found that the number of credit cards issued via digital card issuance platforms will exceed 321 million globally by 2027, from 120 million in 2023. The research found that the growth of almost 170% reflects the use of new advanced digital capabilities, such as digital loyalty schemes and instant issuance,…
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With the Bank of England predicted to raise interest rates by 0.5 percentage points to 4% this Thursday, Credit app TotallyMoney has commissioned Moneycomms to calculate the impact of the expected interest rate hike on mortgage borrowers. The research found that For the average UK property costing £270,708 with a 75% LTV, a 0.5 percentage…
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New research from Freedom Finance has revealed the scale of demand for financial services products as more than two in five (43%) of UK adults – or around 23 million people – either considered or applied for at least one financial services product in the past year. The research also indicated that 25–34-year-olds were most…
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The number of first-time buyers fell by 11%, to 362,461, in 2022 compared to the year prior, according to new analysis from Halifax. However, first-time buyer levels remained higher than pre-pandemic, with the number getting on the housing ladder in 2022 higher than any previous year, other than in 2006 and 2021’s record spike. In…
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With six months to go before the Consumer Duty comes into force, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a review of how firms are planning to implement the Duty. The FCA reviewed a sample of implementation plans and found that many firms show they understand and embrace the shift to delivering good customer outcomes,…
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Deloitte’s consumer confidence tracker reveals that sentiment rose in the last three months of 2022 as consumers became slightly more positive about the state of the economy with consumer confidence rising in the final quarter of 2022 improving by half (+0.6) a percentage point. Whilst small, the uptick marks the reversal of a 15-month period…
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GfK’s Consumer Confidence Index dropped three points in January to -45 amid inflation woes and growing concern about another jump in energy bills. Confidence in the general economy for the coming 12 months fell one point to minus 54 and remains 22 points lower than last January, while the forecast for personal finances increased to…
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Analysis of the latest Bank of England data on average quoted household rates by Freedom Finance has indicated that unsecured personal loan rates are growing at their fastest ever pace. Through the final three months of 2022, £5k personal loans increased by 1.92 percentage points (pp), the biggest ever quarterly increase. It takes the average…
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Lenders believe that credit availability will decrease in the first quarter of this year, a new survey from the Bank of England (BoE) shows. The research found that mortgage demand plummeted in the wake of the mini-budget, and is expected to keep falling. Whilst the demand for credit cards and loans fell, and is expected…
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