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By Julia Kukiewicz Staff Writer
Friday, 28 November 2008
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Money News Roundup
If you only do one thing with your money this week...
Maybe it’s time to join the masses and get a Barclaycard OnePulse credit card.
The OnePulse credit card offers a long – 14 month - balance transfer period, a six month 0% period on purchases or a generous cashback scheme offering 0.5% on normal spending as well as a massive 5% when you spend with Transport for London.
There is also an Oystercard built into the credit card.
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WITH just four weeks to Christmas and its good news for retailers as reports suggest many of us aren’t going to be changing our spending habits this year. Yeah, right!
Also, is it time for you to join the masses and get a Barclaycard OnePulse credit card?
Christmas Crunch
WITH Christmas comes surveys of great joy, or, in this case, great depression.
Analysts have been outdoing each other to work out how we’ll be splashing our festive cash.
HSBC claim that 59% of men and 52% of women aren’t planning to change their spending this year, an average of £479.
According to Birmingham Midshires that’s more like £604.
And if you’re wondering how they can afford it just look as Abbey’s survey which claimed that people are saving up by cutting back on their social lives.
The Consumer Credit Counselling Service also reported a busy week as 9,000 callers got in touch for advice on coping with Christmas.
Where the Property Prices there Price I
WE all know that property prices are spiraling but they aren’t all spiraling equally.
The average house price fell by £430 in November but that won’t reflect the changes around the country.
The Guardian compiled research this week which named the towns and cities seeing the biggest falls.
They found South Wales is generally seeing the biggest reductions in price, while London’s prices have failed to fall significantly.
The Guardian survey also reported on Nationwide’s figures for the end of October which showed Belfast dropping fastest followed by Sheffield (-19%), Bristol (-14%), Cambridge (-14%) and Liverpool (-13%).
Less than 7% of properties on the market are selling each month at the moment.
Contact and Contactless Credit
Here’s some happier news on credit cards.
Credit card providers have agreed to give some ‘breathing space’ to customers in debt.
The industry and government are set to announce a set of principles for helping borrowers further in two weeks but for now government spokespeople are making it clear that the measures have arisen as a result of “significant interest rate increases.”
Barclaycard announced this week that they’d issued their millionth contactless credit card.
Of course, the idea still hasn’t really caught on. Barclaycard remains the only credit card company to offer contactless and you can still only use it in selected London stores.
On the other hand (according to Barclaycard anyway) the credit card is a hit with users: 98% found the payments easy to make and 88% said that it made payments quicker.
And Finally, if you only do one thing this week...
AND finally, if you only do one thing this financial week then maybe it’s time to join the masses and get a Barclaycard OnePulse credit card.
The OnePulse credit card offers a long – 14 month - balance transfer period, a six month 0% period on purchases or a generous cashback scheme offering 0.5% on normal spending as well as a massive 5% when you spend with Transport for London.
There is also an Oystercard built into the credit card.
All this and high-tech payment wizardry too.
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