Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
The Bank of England (BOE) has raised interest rates by 0.5 percentage points to 1.75%, the biggest rate rise in 14 years. The increase is the biggest increase in 27 years, with a prediction that inflation would hit 13% by the end of the year. It was the sixth consecutive raise and the biggest single…
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has outlined new rules to make authorised financial firms more responsible for their appointed representatives (ARs). ARs are not authorised by the FCA – they can offer certain financial services or products under the responsibility of authorised firms (known as principals). Principal firms are responsible for ensuring their ARs comply with…
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Latest quarterly figures from the Equity Release Council have found equity release lending reached a new quarterly high of £1.6 billion in Q2. The rise is the fourth consecutive quarterly period to close with record lending eith the total amount released in the first six months of 2022 surpassing £3.1 billon, a 36 per cent…
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Half of consumers have cut back spending to cope with the cost of living crisis, although financial resilience appears robust, according to figures revealed in TransUnion’s latest Consumer Pulse study. Over 50% of consumers surveyed indicated they’d reduced their expenditure in the last three months and intend to decrease it further as the year progresses. Whilst all spend…
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The Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) has rebuked the digital bank Monzo for failing to provide thousands of customers who were closing accounts with copies of their transaction histories. The CMA found that Monzo breached the Retail Banking Market Investigation Order between May 2021 and March 2022. The Order sets out that every customer must receive copies…
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has confirmed its plans to bring in a new Consumer Duty, which it says will fundamentally improve how firms serve consumers and also will set higher and clearer standards of consumer protection across financial services, requiring firms to put their customers’ needs first. The Duty is made up of an…
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Almost half (45 per cent) of finance and banking firms are failing to carry out crucial ‘ghost-buster’ checks on new business clients, newly released data from SmartSearch has shown. ‘Ghost’ firms are false entities created as part of a corporate infrastructure to hide the connection of a criminal beneficiary. They are often used by sophisticated…
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New research from open banking platform, Tink, reveals that over a quarter (28%) of the UK’s self-employed struggle to access the financial services they require, leading many to believe the current system works against them due to their employment status. According to the survey of consumers, a stark 27% of self-employed people feel they have…
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The Bank of England (the Bank), Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) (collectively the supervisory authorities) have set out potential measures to oversee and strengthen the resilience of services provided by critical third parties (CTPs) to the UK financial sector. CTPs provide certain services to regulated financial services firms and financial market…
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Legislation to enhance the competitiveness of UK financial services and unlock growth and investment across the UK has been introduced to Parliament The Financial Services and Markets Bill repeals hundreds of pieces of EU retained law to enable a coherent, agile and internationally respected regime that works in the interests of the British people. The…
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The equity release market is heading towards £6 billion new lending this year after a record first half which saw the average customer release just over £100,000 in property wealth, new data from the UK’s leading equity release adviser Key Later Life Finance shows. The figures show that plan sales grew by 24.5% in the…
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Open Banking adoption is growing, driven by the rapid digitisation of finance according to the data from global information and insights company, TransUnion. The Open Banking data shows that financial institutions have been experiencing the highest volume of Open Banking transactions, caused in part by banking becoming more digitised during the pandemic. Shail Deep, chief…
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Latest Bank of England figures show that people turning to credit cards and loans to cope with the cost of living crisis are being hit by higher interest rates. Average credit card rates hit 21.43% in June, with this an 0.87 percentage point rise on a year ago when the average credit card rate was…
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