The heads of the financial world are meeting in Switzerland this week with a view to ratifying the US President’s views on banking bonuses and how best to restrain the bonus culture in areas where risk is inappropriate. With new committees and principles due to be published at the end of the 5 day conference, it will be interesting to see if the political, financial and mortgages world can find some level of middle ground.
The Government’s free debt advice service for mortgages and credit is being forced to turn people away because it is unable to cope with a 28% leap in demand, a report has warned. The Public Accounts Committee, which conducted the investigation, said the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills approach to free advice was ‘unnecessarily [...]
The FSA must reconsider its proposals on income verification and make a clearer distinction for lenders, mortgage brokers and customers, between its approach to self-certified and fast track mortgages regulation, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has urged. The CML said in the FSA’s mortgage market review (MMR), the regulator should address the issue of [...]
The Bank of England this week decided against further quantitative easing (QE). Under QE, the Bank has pumped new money into the economy by buying assets such as government bonds, as a way to boost lending by commercial banks. Last week, it revealed it has spent all of the £200bn it created for QE. While [...]
The CBI has reported that it sees a small interest rate rise this summer.
Yesterday the Bank of England kept rates on hold and the CBI chief economic adviser, Ian McCafferty, CBI commented that “The economy is stabilising but still faces some serious headwinds, and recovery remains shallow-rooted. However, near-zero interest rates, the existing £200 billion [...]
The housing market continues to how strong growth. The number of home loans approved by banks in December doubled year on year to 45,897 in 2009 according to the British Bankers Authority. Mortgage lending predominantly undertaken through mortgage brokers is now increasing at its fastest rate since October 2008 up by £3.5bn from November.
As lobbyists look to scrap the compulsory retirement age , news broke that Virgin Mortgages were looking to appoint former Lloyds supremo Sir Brian Pitman at the age of 78 to launch the bank later this year. Angela Knight, chief exec of the BBA said, “when you have got a difficult time, people who have [...]
The heads of the financial world are meeting in Switzerland this week with a view to ratifying the US President’s views on banking bonuses and how best to restrain the bonus culture in areas where risk is inappropriate. With new committees and principles due to be published at the end of the 5 day conference, [...]
And finally figures from Moneyfacts have revealed that mortgage brokers are increasingly offering better rates to consumers than can be found in branch. The average rate for branch-based business for a 2 year fixed is 4.86% compared with 4.79% through broker business. For 5 year deals branch averages 6.05% where a broker has 5.97% and [...]
Lender Skipton Building Society has recently increased its Standard Variable Rate from 3.5% to 5%. We see other national lenders following suit and advise all our clients currently sitting on standard variable rates (SVR) to consider either trackers or fix rate mortgages in order to avoid the discretionary woes of lenders hiking their SVR. The [...]
There are statistics and then there are statistics that make great headlines. For example first time buyers should now be finding it easier to secure a mortgage after new research from Moneyfacts Group revealed lenders have been progressively relaxing their lending criteria. The number of mortgage deals available to borrowers wanting 90% mortgages has almost [...]