Benefits need to double in order to match cost of living rises

Benefits will need to be hiked by twice as much as planned this spring in order to protect millions of the poorest in society from the impact of surging inflation according to new analysis by the Insititute of Fiscal Studies (IFS). The analysis shows poorer households tend to spend almost three times as much of…

Read more

43% of nation is financially reliant on someone other than themselves

New research by Moneyfarm and Dectech has revealed that 25% of the nation are financially dependent on a partner. A further 17% are reliant on their parents with a further 10% reliant on other relatives. Whilst 8% of UK adults are dependent on their children, most surprisingly, 22% of 18 to 30-year-olds are actually financially…

Read more

Arrow Global Group acquires stake in real estate specialist

13th January 2022 Company News | #merger

Arrow Global has announced that it has acquired a significant minority stake in Maslow Capita, a provider of UK real estate development finance. Arrow says that the acquisition will help the existing Maslow management team, led by Chairman Marc Rose and CEO Ellis Sher, accelerate their ambitions to capitalise on opportunities in real estate development…

Read more

SMEs warned of increased risk of targeted scams

UK Finance is warning UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to be alert for scams targeting their companies. As many businesses start the new year with people working from home, fraudsters will try to take advantage of opportunities to steal money where firms might be working outside of their normal processes. Criminals often attempt to impersonate a chief executive, senior manager, or supplier to try and convince staff to make an urgent payment…

Read more

Money worries top concerns of small business workers

As Blue Monday approaches on 17th January 2022, a new survey of the employees of the UK’s small businesses by Purbeck Personal Guarantee Insurance has found that 25% feel more stressed and anxious than prior to the pandemic, 18% feel isolated, 18% are not sleeping well and 16% feel more depressed.  More people (20%) feel worried…

Read more

Business insolvencies predicted to rise 33%

13th January 2022 Business | #business insolvencies

Brexit combined with the coronavirus pandemic has created a double-edged sword for businesses with its full-scale impact yet to be realised with Economists from Atradius predicting that insolvencies will rise by 33%. As the UK marks its first anniversary of the Brexit withdrawal, Atradius reports that the true ramifications of Brexit have been overshadowed by…

Read more

Women continue to feel financial impact of the pandemic

12th January 2022 Consumer Collections |

New research from Quilter has found that if another lockdown is implemented as a result of the Omicron variant, many women consider themselves in a worse off position financially. The research, carried out by YouGov for Quilter, found that more than one in five (22%) women said they were in a worse position financially than…

Read more

Tandem Bank to acquire Oplo

12th January 2022 Company News | #merger

Tandem Bank has announced it is acquiring consumer lender, Oplo with the merger aiming to create a fairer, greener digital bank for UK consumers. The newly combined business will create a leading digital bank with £1.2 billion of total assets supported by £1 billion of funding with more than 171,000 customers. Tandem’s CEO Susie Aliker…

Read more

Key and Aveni.ai agree customer vulnerability partnership

12th January 2022 Company News |

Equity release specialist Key has revealed it is working with speech analytics platform Aveni.ai as it seeks to build on its customer service with artificial intelligence. The strategic partnership embeds Aveni.ai at the heart of Key’s customer interactions – monitoring conversations with artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the later life lending specialist’s ability to identify…

Read more

Half of consumers want urgent help managing their money

Nearly half of consumers(44%) want urgent help in managing their own money, according to a new opinion poll highlighting the dire state of the personal finances of millions of people. The findings come from a poll by Opinium of 4,000 people commissioned by the leading think-tank, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), and credit management company…

Read more

Access to interbank payment systems continues to grow

12th January 2022 Consumer Lending | #payments

The PSR has published its latest access and governance report, showing trends and developments in interbank payment systems over 2019 and 2020. The report details how new participants have been able to join payment systems (access) and notes developments in how the payment systems have been run and operated (governance). This shows that interbank payment…

Read more

Coventry Building Society launches new customer affordability tool

12th January 2022 Company News |

Coventry Building Society has launched a new online affordability tool to help mortgage customers facing financial difficulties. The tool, delivered by fintech Paylink Solutions, allows customers to self-serve and provide their affordability using SFS guidelines. They can also be seamlessly referred for free debt advice to Paylink Solutions’ sister company, PayPlan, to support them with…

Read more

Card spending increases to two-year high

Black Friday and Christmas has helped card average spending to increase to a new over two-year high according to new analysis of UK card trends for November 2021 by FICO. With average spending and cash usage rising, the data was typical of previous festive seasons. However, a drop in the percentage of payments to balance…

Read more