Making it easier to get finance

One of the most important factors for lenders who are considering extending any form of finance to you is your credit file and rating, which will often determine whether or not lenders will be prepared to extend finance to you or not. Whether you are applying for a loan, credit card, store card, catalogue, or mortgage you will find that your credit file and rating can have a huge impact on your level of success.

For anyone that needs to take out finance and is relying on being able to get that finance it is important to do everything possible to boost your chances of success. Of course, no matter what measures you take there is still no guarantee that you will be able to get the finance that you need. However, you can increase your chances of getting it through measures such as keeping your credit file and score in check.

Maintaining responsible and timely payments on bills and debts will help to ensure that your credit file and score is not damaged. Also, showing that you can manage money responsibly will help, which means not having a range of credit cards that are maxed to the hilt or applying for finance on a regular basis – all of this will show up on your credit report.

You will be able to check your credit report on a regular basis either by ordering copies or even by checking them online, which is the easiest and most convenient way. Checking your credit file on a regular basis will ensure that you are not penalized for incorrect, inaccurate or out of date information, as you can look out for any information that is not correct and get it sorted out right away.

Tags: important factors, hilt, lenders, store card, timely payments, regular basis, convenient way

Huge fine for Barclay’s over investments

High Street banking giant Barclay’s Bank has been fined a fortune by the financial services regulator, the Financial Services Authority. The bank has been ordered to repay customers around £60 million, and has been fined £7.7 million on top of this, resulting in total fines of nearly £70 million.

The fines have been imposed as a result of investments that were mis-sold by the bank. The FSA carried out an investigation that revealed ‘serious failings’ in the way in which the bank had sold the two investments, which were Aviva’s Global Balanced Income fund and Global Cautious Income fund. The two funds were sold between July 2006 and November 2008, and the total value of the investments came to nearly £700 million.

According to the FSA the investments were mis-sold because the bank did not take into account a number of crucial factors when selling the funds. The regulator said that the funds were sold to over twelve thousand customers in total, but that the FSA did not consider important factors such as the financial circumstances of the customers, their investment knowledge and experience, or their investment objectives.

An official from the FSA said: “The FSA requires firms to have robust procedures in place to ensure any advice given to customers is suitable. Therefore, when recommending investment products, firms should take account of a customer’s financial circumstances, their attitude to risk and what they hope to achieve by investing. On this occasion however, Barclays failed to do this and thousands of investors, many of whom were seeking to invest their retirement savings, have suffered. To compound matters, Barclays failed to take effective action when it detected the failings at an early stage. “

She added: “Because of this, and given Barclays’ position as one of the UK’s major retail banks, we view these breaches as particularly serious and fully deserving of what is a very substantial fine.”

Tags: financial services regulator, compound matters, advice, substantial fine, High Street, important factors, uk