Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
Rapid rent increases since the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) has been frozen mean the gap between the support low-income private tenants receive and the 30th percentile of local rents is already at 14 per cent (£104 a month for a typical two-bedroom property). This affordability gap is expected to reach a record 17 per cent…
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A new report from Lloyds Merchant Services has found that consumers are increasingly looking for payment flexibility. 61% of adopters say they are more likely to shop with a retailer offering Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), rising to 63% for point-of-sale (POS) finance. Half (50%) are comfortable using BNPL for mid-ticket purchases between £100 and…
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Criminals stole £629.3 million in the first half of the year, a three per cent increase on the same period in 2024. There were over 2.09 million confirmed cases of fraud, a 17 per cent increase on this time last year according to latest UK Finance data. There was a 12% increase in financial losses from authorised…
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Darlington Building Society has announced the appointment of Alex Windle as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Windle will take over as CEO in April next year when Andrew Craddock steps down after seven years. Windle had an early career in commercial, marketing and strategy roles at Vodafone. He served as UK Marketing Director, first at LG…
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) reported that financial services firms paid out £283 million in redress for complaints in the first half of 2025, a 20% increase from £236 million in the previous half. The FCA received 1.85 million complaints, marking a 3.6% rise compared to the second half of 2024. Complaints about banking and…
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New figures from affordable credit provider Salad demonstrated that it has saved more than 90,000 workers over £41 million pounds in interest during 2024-25. The firm, which lends to people with poor or impaired credit scores who want and can afford to repay small sum loans, calculated that its customers saved an average of £454…
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Latest buy-to-let lending by UK Finance for Quarter 2 (Q2) has found that there were 49,590 new buy-to-let loans advanced in the UK, worth £8.8 billion. This was relatively flat compared with the same quarter in the previous year, down 2.6 per cent by number (0.2 per cent by value). The average gross buy-to-let rental…
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Latest Consumer Intelligence marketView data shows the average cost of credit on monthly motor insurance payments fell from 10.6% in August 2024 to 9.7% in August 2025, continuing a year-on-year downward trend. Almost half of all active insurers reduced their instalment costs during this period. Consumer Intelligence says that the fall reflects a wider shift…
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Business process outsourcing (BPO) specialist, Target Group has announced the appointment of Shashi Bhat as Chairman to help steer its next phase of growth in financial services and wider regulated sectors. Bhat has more than three decades of experience in financial services, building deep sector knowledge and expertise across sales and operations, business strategy and digital…
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has urged banks and payment firms to enhance controls against romance fraud. The FCA has found examples of banks going to significant lengths to protect those at risk of romance fraud. But the regulator also uncovered missed opportunities to prevent these scams, which cost victims £106 million last year. One…
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Quarterly data from the Bank of England has found that lenders reported the availability of both secured and unsecured credit to households increased in the three months to end-August 2025 (Q3) and is expected to increase over the next three months to end-November 2025. Household demand for secured and unsecured lending for house purchase remained…
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Latest data from UK Finance has found that there were 415 million credit card transactions in July, 2.4 per cent more than in July 2024. The total spend of £22.8 billion was 2.1 per cent higher than July 2024. Outstanding balances on credit card accounts have increased by 7.5 per cent over the twelve months…
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FinTech Scotland has announced it has appointed Aleks Tomczyk as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Tomczyk replaces Nicola Anderson, who will step down at the end of 2025 to take up new senior director position with Scottish Enterprise. Tomczyk will start the role with immediate effect as designate CEO, to work with Anderson over…
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