Demand for banks to give early warning of interest rate rises April 15, 2012 BANKS will this week come under fresh political pressure to give customers greater notice of hikes in interest rates. Labour will tomorrow table an amendment to the Financial Services Bill after customers of Halifax were given a minimum of only 14 days’ notice of an increase in the standard variable rate, despite the record low [...]
London’s property: As unsafe as houses April 15, 2012 INSANITY, Albert Einstein famously said, is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The crash might have petrified property investors at the bottom and middle of the market, but in London’s swankier postcodes prices are back on the up. The question is whether these represent sound long-term investments or another [...]
Time for a few home truths about Britain’s housing crisis April 10, 2012 EVERY so often, a piece of research comes along which is a must-read. A document yesterday from the Institute of Economic Affairs is one such report: it reveals in no uncertain terms why house prices are so high in the UK, and what needs to be done to ensure that generations of young people are [...]
CITY A.M. | SHADOW MPC April 4, 2012 ALLISTER HEATH | CITY A.M. “Hold rates. Strong survey data shows the economy has been recovering through the first quarter, firmly eliminating any need for more easing. Indeed, markets are already providing some tightening of their own, putting up mortgage rates and borrowing costs.” SIMON WARD | HENDERSON “Hold rates and suspend gilt purchases. The [...]
How to end the euro : One Wolfson prize finalist reveals his proposal April 3, 2012 THE route for euro exit that I recommend requires the prior formation of a secret (and deniable) task force by either Germany alone, or (possibly) with France as a junior partner. This task force should develop a plan in which the first euro exit is the only one – with the complete abandonment of the [...]
Co-operative Bank hikes its mortgage rate April 2, 2012 THE Co-operative Bank has become the latest UK bank to raise its standard variable mortgage rate (SVR) by half a percentage point in the face of higher costs. The rate will go up from 4.24 per cent to 4.74 per cent on 1 May – raising mortgages an average £15 per month for around 54,000 [...]
Give your finances a spring clean: A guide to tidying up all the mess April 1, 2012 SAVINGS Tom Stevenson, investment director, Fidelity WITH a new tax year approaching, the sun shining and a string of bank holidays ahead, spring is certainly in the air. Now is the perfect time for you to take control of your savings. The first step of any spring clean should be ensuring that your money is [...]
An incompetent government hit by a Spring of Discontent March 29, 2012 WHAT a shambles. The police and fire services are shutting petrol stations to prevent riots in parts of the country; Stansted’s baggage controllers are striking over Easter; Britain’s nuclear energy programme is in chaos after E.ON and Npower ditched plans to build new reactors, fuelling fears the lights could go out in a decade’s time; [...]
Bellway profits jump on robust London growth March 27, 2012 HOUSEBUILDER Bellway has said profits before tax more than doubled in the first half of the year as higher selling prices and a strong demand for homes in the south continued to underpin growth. The company, which operates from over 200 sales outlets in the UK, reported a 69 per cent rise in pre-tax profit to [...]
Research: Low interest rates caused crisis March 25, 2012 BANKS were pushed into risky lending by low interest rates, creating the sub-prime bubble and causing the global financial crash, new research out claims – and low rates could again be failing to help the economy in the long run. Low rates in the US and other western economies in the 2000s led banks to [...]