Via The Financial Services Club Blog.

Bank Bonuses “Infographic” was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

That’s right, even the unemployed have an iPhone app dedicated to them, thanks to an application developed by the Government.

The JobCentrePlus app allows job seekers to search and locate relevant jobs from the Government’s job centre database.

Unaffordable

Unsurprisingly though, the decision to spend taxpayers money on this app has come in for some criticism, with charities suggesting that most job centre visitors are unlikely to be able to afford the “Jesus phone”.

“The proposal is a waste of money, as the majority of people who need to go to the job centre cannot afford an iPhone – which costs hundreds of pounds to buy or alternatively comes with an expensive monthly phone tariff.” (Rob Tolan, Elizabeth Finn Care)

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) responded:

“The application provides access to our jobs database and it does not mean you cannot access this without an iPhone. The database is also available on the web and via computers located in Job Centres.”

To be fair to the DWP, the iPhone app part of this project was probably not the expensive bit – pulling together the database of jobs and distributing it through web, mobile etc would not be a minor task in itself, and the app part is probably more about getting some PR by jumping on the iPhone bandwagon than anything else.

It’s worth noting that a similar application is also available for Android, although not much fuss has been made about that. Are Android phones much more affordable than iPhones?

Disregarding all of that, as an app, it’s actually pretty slick, without really having any brilliant functionality.

Features

Here’s what Directgov has to say about it:

• the app can be used by jobseekers in England, Wales and Scotland
• the app is free to download and available to anyone who uses an iPhone, an iPod touch, or a Google Android phone
• last month more than 60,000 people used web browsers on smart phones to visit the JCP jobsearch site – now you can download the app for an interface that is easier and quicker to use on your phone
• the JCP database is the largest in the UK – with over 10,000 new vacancies every working day
• more than 30 per cent of UK employers advertise their jobs with JCP

Once the app has opened, you can do a keyword search for jobs in a specific area, which can be typed in or picked up by your GPS signal.

Here’s what shows after searching for “plumber” jobs in Wolverhampton. It’s the first thing that came into my head, ok? Not very imaginative, I know.

Once you’ve selected a job, and found out more details about it, you can see exactly where it is on a map:

Applying for jobs

Unfortunately, there is no way to apply for the jobs through the app – you’ll have to phone up to do that. As well as searching by keyword, you can browse all jobs within a certain category, and you can save the details of jobs you’re interested in to come back to later, presumably when you’ve finished in the pub.

jobcentreplus is available now through iTunes. It’s also available for Android.

Unemployed? There’s An App For That… was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

You might think that taking financial advice from a Government that has dragged the country into a mountain of debt is like is a little like asking a Premiership footballer for marital advice.

But the Government has today launched a new service, Moneymadeclear, which offers “free financial advice” over the phone, on the web and face-to-face.

What’s it all about, Darling?

Alistair Darling launched the service, saying:

“Moneymadeclear is free, impartial advice for all, whether you are unsure about the small print in a mortgage form, want advice about opening a savings account for your children or grandchildren, or you want some help dealing with repayments before they get out of hand. This service will provide much needed advice for one million people across the UK in the coming year alone.”

The service is to be funded by money scrounged from dormant bank accounts, and follows “successful” tests in the North of England – what constitutes success, we’re not sure.

Here’s what the Moneymadeclear service offers:

• cope with changing circumstances, like a sudden drop in income;
• get the most out of a budget;
• save for a special event, or just a rainy day;
• borrow wisely;
• plan for retirement;
• understand tax and welfare benefits; and
• explain financial jargon.

If they don’t have the answer to your problem, then they’ll let you know of someone who can help, such as financial advisers or accountants. And their time won’t be free.

Whilst it’s difficult to argue against the intentions of the service, and it should help some people, Walletpop UK has hit the nail on the head with its analysis of the service:

Then they (the FSA) concluded that the reason people don’t understand is because they don’t have access to the information. And they’re completely wrong there. There are two reasons people are bad with money. The first is that they don’t understand, and the second is that they do understand but they choose to ignore the little voice in their head that tells them it’s not a good idea to spend their entire paycheck on a handbag.

So what’s the answer?

These people don’t need the information to be out there somewhere. They need nothing short of a qualified person forcing their way into their lounge, demanding they take action, and refusing to leave until they have drawn up a will, moved their utilities, got a decent bank account, established a debt-repayment plan, set up a pension, remortgaged and established an investment plan. This person needs to have no vested interest in the individual doing anything other than the very best thing for themselves, so will need to be paid by the government. So the solution is enforced financial advice and enforced savings.

It’s a radical theory, but probably pretty near to what is necessary than this half-hearted effort from the Government.

Over to you

What do you think of this new service? Would you use it? Let us know in the comments below.

Government Now Offering “Free Financial Advice” was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

A few people have noticed that Google Finance has been having some problems recently, sporadically redirecting to the Hong Kong version of the site.

When you can get it to work correctly, Google Finance is a reasonable source of market information, with some useful historical data and graphing tools. It has had some criticism over the accuracy of data, and there are probably better sources of market news, but is generally pretty quick and largely free of ads, unlike other similar sites, such as Yahoo! Finance.

I’ve tried it a couple of times today, from different locations, and it worked fine in one place, and redirected in the other.

According to Chris Cathcart, there’s a redirect in place making this happen, which seems like a strange thing to do.

Anyone got any ideas why this might be the case?

As an aside, Google Chrome popped up with its new translate feature when I was presented with the Hong Kong version of Google Finance, so I tried it out, and it seemed to fare quite well:

(Click to enlarge)

Google Finance Redirecting To Hong Kong? was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Snippa is another new group buying website along the lines of the US giant Groupon and the recently launched Groupola.

What’s group buying? These sites all tend to offer things to do in your city ( in most cases they tend to be either London or just the main UK cities), and offers heavily discounted deals providing enough people agree to take up the offer. For the merchant, the hope is that visitors to the group buying sites spread the deal virally, through Facebook and Twitter etc., to ensure a large take-up of the offer.

Where Snippa differs from the other entrants into this quickly saturated market is that it offers deals that last for longer than a day, and will have several offers running at one time.

Here’s how it works, in their words:

1. We put a great deal onto Snippa every day.
2. You see a deal you love, you buy it
3. To make the deal happen a minimum number have to buy the deal
4. Spread the word to your friends via social media
5. Only if the deal goes live do we charge your credit card
6. You have your Snippa delivered to your inbox ready to claim your deal
7. Call the merchant book yourself in and have a great time!

In short, it’s largely the same as the other sites. It’s also London-only at the moment.

The key differentiator for all of these group buying site will become the range of deals they can offer, and of course the discount. And much of this will be based on the amount of traction each site can get in each city – the more visitors, the more negotiation power the sites will have with merchants.

Snippa: Another New Group Buying Site was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Tesco is running a trial of its new online home selling service through a joint venture with estate agent Spicerhaart.

The trial is currently running in Bristol, but is soon to extend into London, Manchester, Birmingham, Reading, York, Portsmouth, Crawley, Southampton, Kent  and Leeds.

iSold.com has chosen Bristol for its national launch, offering sellers a fantastic service and the opportunity to save thousands of pounds in estate agency fees. iSold.com has been set up by the UK’s largest independent estate agency group Spicerhaart in association with Tesco, combining the very best of local traditional estate agency with advanced technology.

iSold.com offers 3 packages to home sellers; iSold Essential £999 inc vat; iSold Premium £1,119 inc vat; and iSold Premium Plus £1,299 inc vat and “uses advanced technology packed with features to get you the best price for your home and make the sales process quicker and smoother.”

How It Works

According to the Independent:

Sellers register for a free online valuation before a valuer visits to confirm the price, take photos, measure the rooms and create property details. Customers will pay £299 upfront for marketing services and the additional £700 when iSold.com has successfully sold the property.

The marketing services include listing your home on the following property portals, amongst others:

• Rightmove
• Globrix
• Primelocation
• Zoopla
• FindAProperty.com

Savings

The savings that iSold.com promise on selling your home through them are shown below:

Hybrid

It looks as if Tesco are hoping that this estate agency “hybrid”, blending online services with proper estate agents, will help them to attack a market that they previously dabbled in, Tesco Property Market, which was short-lived due to problems with meeting current regulations.

iSold.com: Sell Your House With Tesco was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

If you’ve got any £20 notes featuring a picture of the English composer Edward Elgar on the back, then you need to spend them before the end of June, when they will cease to be legal tender.

The Bank of England has decided to take all of the Elgar £20 notes out of circulation, and from 1st July, shops will not have to accept them – the only valid £20 note will be the one featuring the economist Adam Smith. There are around 150 million Elgar notes currently in circulation, out of a total of 1.5billion £20 notes.

You should be able to swap your Elgar notes at a bank or building society after 30th June, but if they refuse, you can go direct to the Bank of England to claim a new note. The Bank actually promises to honour the value of any note issued, even notes printed before World War 2.

The notes are being changed in order to cut down on the number of forgeries – the new Adam Smith notes have a design which is harder to copy. They were originally introduced in 1999 but began to be phased out in 2007.

On a personal note it’s a little sad to see a fellow Wolves fan disappear from the notes – perhaps we should start a campaign to get another Wolves-supporting music star, Robert Plant, on a future bank note. He probably owns enough of them.

photo credit: mtop6867

£20 Elgar Notes Disappearing In June was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Hot on the heels of the news that Metro Bank has been granted a banking licence by the FSA, more news from another bank that is hoping to soon be appearing on the UK high-street.

This time, it’s Richard Branson’s banking-baby, Virgin Bank, who’ve announced that they will be charging customers a “low monthly fee” for its current accounts.

Their Chief Executive, Jayne-Anne Gadhia, told the BBC:

“We want to live up to Virgin’s ethos of making sure people aren’t ripped off, that they know what they’re paying for with no hidden charges and I think that’s really important.”

They’ve also stated that customers won’t have to pay a certain amount into their account each month, like many current accounts do.

It’s an interesting tactic, and is one that it likely to be watched with some interest from the other high-street banks. Although there have been some suggestions that the end of overdraft charges might mean us all paying for our accounts, no banks have yet taken the decision to switch to this strategy.

In some ways it is a safe bet for Virgin Bank – without an established customer base, it can try out charging for accounts without having to worry about a mass exodus of clients, as the other banks with millions of customers might fear.

Virgin Bank is likely to launch later in the year, and earned its own banking licence after purchasing a regional bank, Church House Trust, earlier this year.

Virgin Bank To Charge For Accounts was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Metro Bank, which is threatening to shake-up the UK banking market by returning it to a more “customer-centric” business, has finally been granted a licence by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

Metro aims to open two branches in central London in the next couple of months, although as we’ve said before on Money Watch, it’s a shame that they appear reluctant to open branches outside the M25, proposing as many as 200 branches in Greater London within 10 years.

They’ve been waiting on the licence for 18 months, although they must have been confident of getting one, as they’ve been busy developing some branches in the capital whilst waiting; branches at One Southampton Row, Holborn, and on the corner of Cromwell Road and Earls Court Road in South Kensington will be the first to open followed by branches at Fulham Broadway and Borehamwood.

It is thought that Metro Bank will be the first new bank on the UK high street since the late 19th Century.

One other disappointing thing about the launch has been the lack of official online content. I’ve finally managed to track down the official website, but they’ve got a bit of money to spend if they want to secure the obvious domain name metrobank.co.uk, which is being offered for £50,000.

Metro Bank Granted Licence was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Another day, another scam to stay on the look out for.

This one uses Apple’s latest gagdet, the iPad, as the bait to lure unsuspecting geeks  idiots Facebook and Twitter users, with scammers attempting to get their hands on your mobile phone so they can sign you up to receive premium rate text messages.

The scam takes the form of a Facebook app (there are various ones out there, and they’re continually getting shut down and popping up), which offers you and your network of friends the chance to get a free iPad as part of a research programme. Of course, there’s no such thing as a free iPad, just a stream of expensive texts coming your way.

The Guardian explains how it works:

The scam pages typically take their intended victims through a three step process:
1) “Become a Fan” of the page; 2) “Invite your friends” to also become fans of the page, and take part in the “special promotion”; 3) “Claim” or “Apply” for your prize. Some of the pages pretend to have thousands of positive comments from other Facebook users claiming that the offer is genuine, Sophos notes.

There’s also a similar scam running on Twitter. This video from internet security firm Sophos explain it all in more detail.

photo credit: MitjaSchneehage

Beware Facebook/Twitter iPad Scam was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.