Just when it seemed things couldn’t get worse for Northern Rock, the government will tomorrow announce that it is to take control of the bank and nationalise it. Despite looking for outside bidders, including Richard Branson’s Virgin group, to take on the debts of the Rock, they’ve decided instead to do something that they haven’t […]
Category: Banks
Find Forgotten Money
Nope, this won’t help you recover that lost loose change from down the back of the sofa, but new website Mylostaccount has been launched to help you recover money from lost or dormant acounts with banks, building societies and National Savings & Investments. The free service has been put together by the British Bankers’ Association […]
Bank Charge Court Case Delayed
There’s been a false start in the bank charges court case that was supposed to start on Monday. Apparently the judge’s commitments have meant that it is unable to start on time, although it is hoped that it will begin at some point this week. When there is anything interesting from the case, I will […]
Are We About To See The End Of Free Banking?
This week could see the start of another bad period for the banks, thanks to a new test case starting tomorrow (14th Jan). The High Court is to start ruling on a case the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is bringing against 7 top banks and the Nationwide building society. The case is looking at […]
Where To Go To Save Your Forgotten Money
A long while ago I blogged about the plan for the Government to seize money which has been left in dormant accounts. Under the “Dormant Accounts bill”, the money will be used for community projects. It is thought there could be up to £400million left untouched in abandonned or forgotten bank and building society accounts. […]
Update On Bank Charge Situation
The reclaiming of bank charges has largely dropped out of the news recently, thanks to both the OFT’s “super-claim” against some of the country’s biggest banks, and the Northern Rock saga. If you’ve forgotten where we all stand with bank charges, and what action, if any, you should be taking if you have outstanding charges […]
Good & Bad News From The Banks
There’s been mixed news from the banks today which makes for some interesting reading. Firstly, on the good side, if you’re a saver, savings rates have reached a massive 7% from some banks and building societies, with many having raised their interest rates on savings accounts in the last couple of weeks. As ever, for […]
Independent: Spread Bank Pressure
There’s an interesting article I really agree with at The Independent, calling for the recent consumer backlash against banks to spread to other companies within the financial services industry: The thrust of this consumer power into the financial services industry has so far been limited to bank accounts – the basics of running our daily […]
Student Finance: Best Student Bank Accounts
Comparing student bank accounts isn’t that easy – but take a look at the MoneyFacts best buy table, and you’ll see that the top two accounts offered on their are the Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax student accounts. Both of these accounts offer 2% interest if you are in credit, but possibly more importantly, […]
HSBC U-Turn After Facebook Protest
Following on from last week’s post on students pressuring HSBC on Facebook, HSBC have decided to do a U-turn on their plans to scrap interest-free overdrafts on their graduate accounts: Thousands of students on Facebook had threatened to boycott the bank. The National Union of Students said this made all the difference to the protest. […]