Did Darling know about the Icelandic bank collapse?

Earlier this month UK consumers were shocked after the collapse of Icelandic bank Landsbanki left many fearing for the savings that they had placed in UK branches of the bank. Many had been persuaded to put their cash in Icelandic accounts such as Icesave over the past couple of years due to the high rates of interest that were being offered. In fact Icesave spent a considerable amount of time at the top of the best buy tables because of the interest rates offered. Read more

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Buy-to-let investors missing out on best loan deals

Investors looking to take advantage of the growing buy-to-let market are missing out on the best methods to finance their purchases, according to research from Heritable Bank.

Coupled with the hike in rates, this means that investors could be needlessly wasting thousands of pounds on interest.

The study shows that investors spend 60 per cent of ongoing costs on mortgage repayments. But only a quarter of the 186 investors surveyed said that they had put finding the most advantageous financing deal at the top of their priorities.

Chief executive of Heritable Bank, Mark Sismey-Durrant, said: “Property investors often have a real passion for the portfolio of bricks and mortar they have built up, but equally they are in the business to make money.

“That’s why we were surprised to see such a mismatch between the amount of money spent on meeting their mortgage and the amount of time spent ensuring they have the best, most appropriate financial arrangements in place.”

Other significant costs for investors, according to the study, included paying for maintenance work (13 per cent of overall costs), covering management and letting agency fees (ten per cent) and paying legal and accountancy fees (eight per cent). General property investment-related bills took up the final ten per cent of the ongoing costs.

Tags: management, money spent on, amount of time, finance, agency

Time is money

The majority of us are not putting enough time aside to work out our finances.

That is according to Axa, which found that one in three British adults refuse to pay any attention to their finances at all.

Of those who do spend time looking over their money, the majority allocate just five minutes each week to the process.

Despite these slightly worrying figures, Axa insists that all is not lost and says that by giving ourselves just 15 minutes each week to sort through our finances, we could each save thousands of pounds in reduced debt.

Based upon this period of time being set aside, Axa insists that as much as a quarter of personal debt can be reduced, while savings can increase by 40 per cent in just 12 months.

“There is a direct correlation between the amount of time people spend on their finances and how much they save,” said Steve Folkard of Axa.

“Our research shows that it’s not until people start to spend around an hour a month on planning and reviewing their money issues that they really see their savings pot grow – people who spend more than an hour saved an average £1,532 last year, compared to just £576 saved by people who don’t review their finances on a monthly basis at all.”

Axa offers advice to people such as simplifying your money into two columns (money in and money out), clearing debts before saving and looking at the situation positively.

Tags: majority allocate, money issues, money, time is money, amount of time, all."Axa offers advice

How Do Bank Accounts Work?

Why does it take so many days for a cheque to be paid into your personal account? We thought we’d look at how these bank accounts actually function from the Bank’s side of things and maybe along the way we’d find out whether the system is fair to its customers. Read more

Tags: cheque, amount of time, bank accounts, faceless acronym, BBC How Do Bank, bank