Northern Rock causes saver caution

Savers are being far more cautious with the money that they put into savings following the recent credit squeeze and subsequent Northern Rock scare, price comparison site Peopleschampion.com has revealed.

Conducting polls of people standing in the queues outside Northern Rock, the website found that customers were taking their savings to larger institutions such as the clearing banks – Lloyds TSB, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Halifax and Bank of Scotland (HBOS).

This is in spite of the fact that the Bank of England has assured savers that their money is 100 per cent guaranteed in the event of a bank collapse. The savers that were surveyed were unanimous in their stance: safety now comes before higher interest rates.

Jim Spowart, a spokesman for the website, said: “Many people – especially older people – are being much more cautious with their money. They have been bitten first by the pension crisis, and now Northern Rock, so instead of going instinctively for the highest return, they are looking more at safer havens where they know their money is secure.”

According to Simon Ward, a top economist at asset management firm New Star, the Bank of England’s last resort support to Northern Rock may well have amounted to as much as £2.9 billion.

Tags: scare, pension crisis, Many people, rock, savers

Chip and pin scare

Fears are growing that criminals may soon be able to collect customer information from doctored chip and pin machines.

Credit card holders could be targeted if thieves get their hands on the information which was discovered by a specialist research team at Cambridge University.

The team claims to have achieved its goal of reconfiguring a machine, allowing it to copy personal account and pin numbers.

This information can then be used to create fake cards, leaving consumers vulnerable to theft from their account.

It took just one month and £1,000 for the researchers to crack the system, with team members saying that all of the information and equipment is available over the internet from computer manufacturers.

The researchers specialise in testing the security of electronic hardware and the payments association Apacs says it is unlikely that the scam will be carried out on the high street.

An Apacs statement said: “People could, in theory, use this to steal account details from cards. Our experts are in discussion with the manufacturers of terminals to see what can be done.”

Tags: information, street, economics, security, GBP, pin scare, thieves, scare