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By Julia Kukiewicz Editor
Friday, 3 July 2009
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Previous Money News Roundups
See our other recent Money News Roundups and other related news stories:
Money News Roundup (26 Jun 09)
The week in money with Julia Kukiewicz: find out why Brits could soon be getting £5000 a year energy bills, how credit card spending is shrinking and why lottery money is going unspent by charities.
Money News Roundup (19 Jun 09)
Find out why credit card holders have been left with Egg on their faces, how young women risk bankruptcy and who would engage in some Hitchcock-inspired fraud in this week's money news round up. By Julia Kukiewicz.
Money News Roundup (12 Jun 09)
A glance back at this week's personal finance news.
Money News Roundup (29 May 09)
The week in money with Julia Kukiewicz: Find out how Santander could affect you, why your bank is trying to get you to borrow, who could be committing dangerous car fraud and what the Potato Council's been up to.
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Making credit cards better, paying off mortgages and boat insurance news in this week's roundup.
The Credit Card Crackdown
IT'S been on the cards for a few months now but this week the details of the great credit card crackdown were finally released.
The crackdown, which aims to stop credit card companies from targeting consumers who are likely to get into a lot of debt, will include a ban on unsolicited credit card cheques.
In fact, unsolicited was a word which came up a lot in the government's white paper on the subject. Raising credit limits without asking the card-holder also came under fire, for example.
Around 19% of card users have received letters from their credit card provider saying they have increased their spending limit without them asking for it, according to uSwitch.
In general, making sure that consumers are well-informed about credit cards and other financial products was the paper's main drive. The appointment of a consumer advocate was also mooted.
How many of these proposals will actually be put into practice remains to be seen, of course.
Energy Bills: Higher or Lower?
HOT on the heels of last week's dire projections on energy bills (see last week's money news roundup) comes a report from the Royal Society which claims that, on the contrary, bills aren't going high enough.
Higher bills are key to the fight against climate change, the report argued, as they will prepare the way for higher priced alternatives to carbon such as renewable and nuclear power.
The report also suggested a carbon tax - like VAT - on products which would make items with a high carbon footprint more expensive and thus less attractive to consumers.
Paying off more while the going's good
HOMEOWNERS have taken advantage of low interest rates to plough £8.1 billion into their mortgage repayments it was announced this week.
According to the Bank of England the national attempt to reduce housing debt may be the largest amount ever spent on housing in a comparable period.
"Sharply falling house prices have made housing equity withdrawal increasingly unattractive," Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist of IHS Global Insight told The Times, "...Ever lower savings rates have [also] made it increasingly more attractive for many people to use any spare funds that they have to reduce their mortgages."
And the Pointless Press Release of the week award goes to...
THIS week's prestigious pointless press release prize goes to Saga boat insurance for their warning that boat thefts are more likely in the summer.
Thefts from boats are 68% more likely while they are moored in the summer months, rather than stored away for the winter, apparently. Who’d have thought it...
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