Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has reaffirmed the regulator’s focus on affordability, business models and culture in the consumer credit sector. Speaking in London this week, Jonathan Davidson, executive director of supervision – retail and authorisations at the FCA, noted that growth in the sector has slowed, increasing 6.5% over the last 12 months, according…
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HM Treasury-backed rent reporting service CreditLadder and the Nationwide Building Society, have joined forces to help first-time buyers move on to the property ladder. The relationship enables would-be homeowners to be prompted if they are eligible to apply for a Nationwide mortgage. Users will then be directed to discuss potential options with Nationwide’s mortgage consultants…
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Homeowners paying off mortgages into their 70s is expected to become the “new normal” as more than half of loans can now be extended over 40 years. New data compiled by Moneyfacts shows 51% of mortgage deals available on the market are available over a maximum repayment period of 40 years, up from 36% in…
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The UK’s wealthy high net-worth individuals (HNW) individuals are struggling to secure credit from high street banks, new research from Butterfield Mortgages has revealed. Butterfield Mortgages has commissioned an independent survey among more than 500 high net-worth individuals to uncover the difficulties they face when applying for credit. It found: A ninth (12%) of the HNWs…
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Interest in fixed-rate mortgage deals remained high in February, according to latest figures from Experian. A majority of consumers (81%) were looking at fixed-term deals, compared to 80% in January and 83% in December. The figures suggest consumers are increasingly reluctant to view tracker deals as a realistic option for their home loan, with just…
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New research from Experian has identified 5.8 million people in the UK who are virtually invisible to the credit economy because there is little or no information available on their financial track record. In the absence of sufficient information to make a decision, these Invisibles can either be excluded from mainstream financial services or be…
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New research from comparethemarket.com has found that half of homeowners feel they have made expensive mistakes during the process of buying their first property. In a poll of over 2,000 homeowners, 15% wished they’d haggled more on the price of the house when buying their first property and 10% of respondents said they made a…
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Mortgage arrears would soar by 30% over the next three years in the event of a no-deal Brexit, according to data modelling by Kensington Mortgages, the specialist mortgage lender. Using its proprietary risk modelling tool, Vector, Kensington’s analysts tested a series of scenarios based on a representative data set of 750,000 loans (with an outstanding…
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced the final rules on the Directory – a new public register that enables consumers, firms and other stakeholders to find information on key individuals working in financial services. Publishing this information on a regular basis will empower customers to make sure they only deal with individuals whom an…
Read moreNew figures released by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show consumer finance new business in January was at a similar level to the same month in 2018. Credit card and personal loan new business together fell in January by 3% compared with the same month in 2018, while retail store and online credit new…
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Over half (52%) of financial services customers feel that financial services firms treat consumers unfairly, according to new research by Voice of the Customer (VoC) pioneers Maru/edr. The findings are from a new study into customer treatment in the financial services industry, which interviewed 1,000 independent customers who held at least once financial product in…
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Knowledge Bank’s Criteria Activity Tracker for February shows that searches regarding people with debt issues were four of the five top criteria searches in the second charge category, for the very first time. UK Knowledge Bank’s monthly criteria index reveals the searches brokers perform prior to mortgage product sourcing. Concern might be raised within the…
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UK Finance has released its latest Household Finance update for January 2019 The figures indicate that £10.8 billion was spent on credit cards in January 2019, this was 4.4% higher than the same month the previous year. The outstanding level of credit card borrowing also grew by 4.4% in the twelve months to January. Personal…
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