This time of year traditionally brings a plethora of 0% balance transfer deals from the major credit card providers. It’s a smart way to manage an outstanding debt and ensure that you’re not just paying a fortune in interest rates and making no inroads into your actual debt. But there’s a sting in the tail [...]
Depressing news from consultancy company McKinsey suggests that our love affair with our credit cards could cost us all dearly for at least another 10 years. Britain now has the second highest level of debt among all the major global economies. The only country statistically worse off than the UK is Japan. In the past [...]
After the flurry of retail excitement over the Christmas period, it seems that more people than ever will be relying on their credit cards to carry them through the chilly doldrums of January. In its fifth annual outing, the Post Office Consumer Credit Report predicts that more than a third of credit card holders will [...]
A plummeting Euro and tighter budgets on the home front could mean that our European neighbours win the hearts and minds of the UK holidaymakers in 2012. A survey by Post Office Travel Money suggests that this year, destination choice will be based purely on affordability rather than aspiration. And thanks to a strong pound [...]
The UK is home to some of the most incredible technological inventions of the 20th and 21st Centuries. The Internet, in all its many wondrous forms, was a distinctly ‘British’ invention, and we Brits love our technology. Now, those habits are transforming the way we shop, according to a survey on global shopping habits by [...]
Following requests made under the Freedom of Information Act, it appears that dozens of council employees and civil servants have been formally reprimanded, disciplined and some even jailed for misusing Government credit cards. Proving that credit card fraud doesn’t just happen online or is only perpetuated by criminal gangs, hundreds of Government employees have been [...]
Identity theft is a constant concern for online shopping consumers. For some time, credit card issuers and banks have relied on one organisation – CPP – to help reassure their customers that their details were safe, and if there was a problem with fraudsters taking over their identity, they wouldn’t suffer a financial loss. But [...]
In a carefully timed move designed to gain maximum brownie points for the Government over the Christmas holiday, the Treasury has announced that it’s to force retailers to scrap the universally despised credit card surcharges that are spreading to all areas of retailing. In a year where many consumer bodies as well as journalists have [...]
Looking toned in your tux, dazzling in your little black dress! When we’re already feeling uncomfortable about the amount of mince pies and Christmas cake we’ve managed to consume in the last 2 weeks, just to really make us feel guilty this week the media is crammed with pre-Xmas wonder diets. If we could be [...]
If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to have an eroding effect on your standard of living, it’s inflation. Whilst the monthly reports from the Bank of England may seem just distant numbers relevant only to the Square Mile’s bankers, inflation actually has a major impact on the cost of everything from the bread for your [...]
We love our credit cards in the UK. Second only to our cousins on the other side of the ‘Pond’ in terms of credit card expenditure, many Brits think nothing of piling on the ‘buy now, pay later’ debt. But as long as you pay the minimum payment every month, you’re gradually chipping away at [...]
With the Prime Minister’s Office busy lowering everyone’s expectations in advance of next Tuesday’s Autumn Statement by the Chancellor George Osborne, it’s hard to pick up a newspaper or look at the TV without running headlong into more and more depressing economic news. Evidence suggests that Osborne will announce substantially higher future Government borrowing needs [...]
Northern Rock plc has today been sold to Virgin Money, the retail banking arm of Richard Branson’s Virgin empire for £747 million. Northern Rock was the first financial institution to be partly nationalised following its near collapse in 2007, and its return to the private sector in some way marks the real beginning of the [...]
New figures out from the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) indicate a positive rise in consumer lending in the year to August, but the association is quick to point out that it doesn’t believe this indicates any kind of sustainable recovery for the credit industry. The FLA, a trade body that represents finance houses in [...]
Consumer Focus, the Government formed ‘Consumer Champion’ has lodged a super-complaint with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) aimed at reducing the credit card and commission charges we all face when making purchases on plastic or drawing cash when we’re abroad. In what’s being dubbed the ‘Travel Money super-complaint’ Consumer Focus allege that UK banks [...]
There was more bad news in the travel industry last month when Brighton based package holiday operator Holidays 4U collapsed without warning. The failure dashed the holiday plans of around 60,000 people onto the rocks, and stranded some 12,650 holiday makers abroad. The company which also traded as ‘aegeanflights.com’, ‘Accommodation Overseas’ and ‘Holiday Beds’, advised [...]
When you open your credit card bill this month, rest assured it’s unlikely to top that of the National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) or indeed that of the MoD. Freedom of Information Act enquiries have revealed the NPIA managed to fritter away £6.5 million of tax payer’s money just on credit card expenditure in the [...]
As you search out your bucket and spade this weekend in preparation for the annual August holiday exodus, spare a thought for our ‘High Street’ Bankers, that much maligned race who never seem to be able to do anything right. Just when they thought they had more than enough to worry about with the continual [...]
Many newspapers and websites have trumpeted a victory for consumers this week as the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) slated budget airlines and various other retailers for the reviled practice of credit card surcharging, but we feel that this battle has some distance to run before we can safely open the champagne. On Tuesday the [...]
Those of us with mortgages breathed a sigh of relief this week when the Bank of England (BoE) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) resolved to hold the Base Rate at its all-time low of 0.5% for another consecutive month. But the news for credit card holders is less rosy as when they open their statements this [...]
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