Nationwide tightens mortgage criteria

Nationwide, the UK’s second biggest mortgage lender, has increased the deposit needed by new borrowers to a minimum of ten per cent on all except two of its products. Read more

Tags: United Kingdom, loan, director for mortgages, nationwide mortgages, nationwide, Mortgages, biggest mortgage lender, bbc

Consumers need to be ‘wary’ of introductory Isa offers

Consumers have been warned by a financial expert to tread carefully when considering introductory offers on individual savings accounts (Isas).

Bestinvest said that introductory offers emerge when an Isa product first launches, which means no one can know the track record of a fund manager or how well it will perform.

Adrian Lowcock, senior investment adviser at Bestinvest, said: “You have to be a bit wary of them, and know what you are getting into. We tend to recommend fund managers that have a proven track record.”

He added that that one way to get “good value” with a deal is to find an advisor who will offer a discount and charge a low rate of initial commission.

Figures released in November 2007 by HM Revenue and Customs showed that the amount of money saved in Isas has now reached £208 billion.

According to the BBC, the total value of Isas has risen sevenfold from £29 billion since April 1st 2000.

Tags: bestinvest, Banking, value, individual savings account, november, sevenfold, investment

Professional mortgage market could avoid credit crunch effects

Consumers looking for a professional mortgage are “best placed” to escape the effects of the credit crunch unscathed, claims one housing market expert.

Scottish Widows said that the recent economic turmoil had caused a reduction in the number of 100 per cent mortgage products available.

It could also lead to the remaining products becoming more expensive.

However, Richard Clark, head of product development and marketing for Scottish Widows, said: “The impact on this area of the market has been very much less than everywhere else because there are lenders who haven’t changed any of their criteria for professionals at all.”

Those customers who are looking for a professional mortgage are the “best placed” to get an expanded loan to valuations or income multiples on their salary, he added.

Mr Clark concluded that it could be that the only lenders who are prepared to offer 100 per cent mortgages could be those who specialise in the area.

At the end of January 2008, the BBC reported that the number of new mortgage approvals had fallen for the seventh consecutive month in December last year.

Tags: income multiples, bbc, december, Mortgage loan, head, housing, cent mortgage products, expert

Consumers better barometer of inflation than statistics

Spenders maybe “a better barometer of inflation” than statistics from the government’s Office for National Statistics claim financial experts.

Findings from research conducted among Fool.co.uk’s readers reveals that many believe inflation to be between six and seven per cent rather than the two per cent stated by the government.

David Kuo, head of personal finance at Fool.co.uk, said: “We are slowly beginning to see that these inflation figures are slowly beginning to feed through.”

He added that although at the moment interest rates are seen to be coming down because the Bank of England is very worried about a recession, “we do honestly believe that there is inflation within the economy”.

This time last year, the BBC reported that inflation was at an 11 – year high as higher fuel costs helped to push up the consumer price index (CPI) to 2.7 per cent in November.

On January 10th, the Bank of England voted to maintain the Bank’s rate at 5.5 per cent, having cut the rate by 0.25 per cent back in December.

Tags: head, fuel costs, research, Fool.co.uk's readers, bbc, cent, inflation, government

Touch-and-pay Barclaycard launched

Barclaycard’s new OnePulse, an innovative contactless credit card, already has 1,000 shops in London signed up to accept it.

OnePulse is now all set to be launched next month.

The card’s major innovation is that items costing less than £10 will be able to be purchased in participating retail outlets without customers having to type in their PIN.

Guy Harvey, financial director at resteraunteurs Eat – one of OnePulse’s new clients – said that he was “excited” by the scheme.

“It will help us to eliminate some of the frustrations for our customers, such as queues in the busy lunchtime rush.”

The card was inspired by the Oyster card system, launched by Transport for London in 2003. For the first time, the city’s residents could touch in and out by using smartcards, and were no longer forced to buy paper tickets.

Users of OnePulse will also be able to use the new product as an Oyster card, Barclaycard has previously announced.

The BBC reports that Visa and Mastercards will also be introducing touch-and-pay technology in “certain London locations” from next month.

Tags: Credit Cards, smartcards, GBP, scheme, OnePulse, Guy Harvey, Credit card, bbc

Hips earnings ’sliced in half’

Pack providers have cut the earning potential of home inspectors implementing the new Home Information Packs (Hips), it has been claimed.

Interviewed on BBC Two’s Working Lunch, home inspector Alyson Cadd said that her potential earnings could now have been halved, thanks to meddling by high street providers.

“The pack providers… have now basically driven themselves between us and our clients, which would have been the estate agents or even the self-seller, the seller of the property, we now have the pack providers and these panels that we have to contact.”

She added that providers were “not just taking the commission or a cut; they’re actually taking half our fee in many cases, certainly the larger pack providers which really seem to have cornered the market with a lot of people”.

Hips, sometimes known as seller’s packs, will become mandatory for sales of homes with four bedrooms or more in England and Wales on August 1st, before being extended to cover all properties over the next year.

Ms Cadd also strongly criticised the delays to the scheme, which was originally to have been implemented across the country earlier this year.

Describing herself as “angry and stunned” by the hold up, she said that she knew of people who had given up jobs to become home inspectors in time for the original start date who had been left badly out of pocket as a result.

Tags: earnings, bbc, inspector alyson cadd, start, Home Information Pack, half, pocket, property

Beware bogus bank

Consumers are being warned to avoid the Northern Offshore Trust Bank.

The ‘bank’, which claims to be based in Guernsey, has been highlighted as featuring as part of an international scam, reports the BBC.

The Guernsey Financial Services Commission has warned that the bank is bogus and consumers are warned to avoid any contact with it.

It became apparent that something was wrong when it was realised that the names of directors of Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor were being illegally used to front the bank.

Jon Fredrik Baksaas, chief executive of Telenor, and his colleagues were listed as being employed within the fake bank, but they knew nothing of it.

The scam worked by persuading customers to invest £5 million via the bank.

Tags: bbc, contact, colleagues, Reuters, telenor, bogus bank