Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
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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Tandem Bank has announced its partnership with money-saving fintech Snoop. The collaboration will provide Snoop customers with access to Tandem’s savings product offering, including the innovative and newly launched Top Up Instant Access account, as part of Snoop’s product comparison services. Snoop is a customer-focused business that uses payments data to provide data-driven, personalised insights…
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Experian has announced plans to pilot a new service that could help millions of financially excluded people get better access to mainstream financial services. The new initiative aims to help people with little or no credit history, the so called ‘credit invisibles’ to build out their credit files in as little as three months, for…
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One in ten (10%) mortgage holders have decreased overpayments amid the cost of living crisis according to Comparethemarket. As households try to adapt to higher mortgage rates and the increased cost of living, one in two (51%) homeowners who regularly overpay on their mortgage are concerned about their ability to continue doing so over the…
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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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Analysis of the latest Bank of England data on average quoted household rates from Freedom Finance has raised hopes that the cost of consumer credit may now be starting to fall. Coinciding with decreases in inflation, the data shows that rates on all major forms of consumer credit have declined between the end of 2022…
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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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EQ Credit Services, EQ RiskFactor and EQ KYC Solutions have announced that they are to merge into a single entity under a new leadership team. The merger will create a new brand called Lenvi. The new leadership team will be spearheaded by Richard Carter, founder of Nostrum Group which was acquired in 2017, and…
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New research by TotallyMoney and PwC has found that 10.7 million women are locked out of accessing mainstream financial products. The research also found that on average, women have a 10 point lower credit score than men, a gap that exists throughout their entire lifetime. Lenders are 16% less likely to provide women with pre-approved…
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Many of the self-employed who save into a private pension rarely change the cash contributions they make according to research by Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) research, funded by the Nuffield Foundation. Employees’ pension contributions tend to be set as a fraction of their earnings – and so cash contributions rise with earnings. But many of…
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Kensington Mortgages the specialist mortgage lender, has announced that it has completed its sale to Barclays Bank. Barclays has acquired the business from funds affiliated with Blackstone Tactical Opportunities and Sixth Street, which jointly owned the business since 2015. The acquisition allows Barclays to become one of the few major banks with a specialist mortgage…
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Latest Bank of England (BoE) data has shown that consumers borrowed in January with an additional £1.6 billion in consumer credit compared with £0.8 billion borrowed in December. This was split between £1.1 billion of borrowing on credit cards and £0.5 billion of borrowing through other forms of consumer credit. Credit figures show consumer credit…
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