Desperate customers being shunned by banks

It has been claimed in a recent report that many banks in the UK are turning away many desperate customers who are in need of help with their finances. Read more

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People advised not to rely on loans for Christmas

Consumers are advised not to take out elf”>loans in order to “make Christmas happen”, an industry expert has said.

According to Steven Baillie, head of loans at Sainsbury’s Bank, using a personal loan purely to fund Christmas is not recommendable, as it may take a few years to pay off.

“If you’ve got to carry that forward for another 12, 24, 36 months … Christmas comes round two or three times before you’ve paid off the first one. So it’s not something I would, as a responsible lending organisation, expect customers to do,” he said.

Research by MoneyExpert.com on Christmas spending reveals that over a million bills were neglected in January this year as a result of excessive spending over the festive season.

Meanwhile, Credit Action found that there were 669 million credit card transactions made in December 2006, up six per cent on the previous year and equating to 250 transactions per second throughout the month.

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RAC says car contents targeted by thieves

Car insurers the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) revealed yesterday that thieves were increasingly targeting car contents as well as the vehicles themselves.

RAC spokesperson Liz Kennett said: “Cars now have sophisticated alarms and immobilisers so these days it’s actually really difficult to steal someone’s car unless you have got a pair of keys.

“Quite often it’s about the prestige cars, where people are stealing them to order, rather than your average family car. It’s much harder to steal the actual car itself which is why [thieves] are much more interested in the possessions inside the car.”

Ms Kennett added that increasing sophistication among the criminals had also been detected by the club: “More cars are now being stolen by thieves getting the keys before hand. They are actually stealing them to order.”

However, she added that “theft from vehicles probably won’t drive up car insurance premiums because people don’t claim for the items. They would only claim for the damage to the vehicle for example if the window had been smashed.”

Statistics from the Motor Insurers’ Bureau from 2006 show that a total of 36,000 uninsured claims were reported – a reduction of almost five per cent on the previous year.

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Consumers accustomed to taking on debt

Consumers have grown increasingly used to taking on debt in recent years, according to the head of a website which offers advice about individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs).

As the agreements become increasingly popular with borrowers who are struggling to make debt repayments, Phillip Beck of Freeivaadvice.co.uk said: “I think it is a problem that has built up over many years and that is that people have got used to taking on debt.

“The amount of consumer debt in the UK has steadily increased over the years and it is finally getting to the point where people have so much debt which they simply cannot repay.”

However Mr Beck, commenting ahead of new research which will examine the increasing number of county court judgements granted in the UK, also acknowledged that “lax lending policies” by some loan providers and lenders was also part of the problem.

According to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) some 12,228 people entered into IVAs with lenders in the third quarter of 2006, an increase of 117.9 per cent on the same period in the previous year.

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