As lockdown is gradually phased out and furlough payments eventually stop, many people will not be able to return to their pre-Coronavirus situation of being able to manage their debts and bills. Now is the time the debt advice sector should be considering how to prepare for the large demand it may face and what may need to change. We don't know how many people will have problems We don't … [Read more...]
General debt news & policy
Here are my articles on news and policy except for high cost credit and Insolvency, which are separate as there as so many of them.
Lloyds/Halifax overdraft fees – down, then up, now down (mostly)
From 2017 to 2020 people with the Lloyds group of banks - Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland -have seen their overdraft charges change dramatically several times. This article charts the extraordinary rollercoaster of these fees. Overdraft charges before 2017 People were charged multiple fees on a Lloyds overdraft: a £6 a month for having an arranged overdraft; a £10 a … [Read more...]
Credit card minimum payments – developments from 2000 to 2019
This is a guest post from The Money Charity, the UK's financial capability charity. If you would like to receive its monthly statistical report The Money Statistics, sign up here. This paper was written as background research for The Money Charity’s responses to the Financial Conduct Authority consultations on the short term credit market. As a reference document it may be of interest to … [Read more...]
Record numbers of CCJs in 2019 & for smaller amounts
On May 13, the statistics for CCJs for the first quarter of 2019. were published by Registry Trust, who keeps the records of CCJs in England and Wales. There were more than 320,000 consumer CCJs in the three months, the highest number recorded for a quarter. Consumers are being sued more often for smaller amounts of money The graph shows how the number of CCJs in the first quarter of … [Read more...]
PPI – deadline for new complaints has now passed
In 2017, the FCA launched a PPI advertising campaign telling you to make a decision about claiming PPI, because a deadline was being introduced. That August 29 2019 deadline has now passed and you can't start a new PPI complaint. If you have a complaint already in progress, the MSE forum is a good place to ask questions about it. And if your complaint has been rejected, send it to the … [Read more...]
Rolling out a Universal Disaster – it’s time to stop
Today the National Audit Office has published Rolling out Universal Credit. This is the NAO's first report on Universal Credit (UC) since 2014. It makes grim reading for everyone: the DWP; taxpayers who are funding a huge bill for changes which may not achieve any useful purpose; local authorities, housing associations, food banks, benefits and debt advisers who are having to support … [Read more...]
Max FOBT stake to be £2 and other good news about gambling
Today's announcement that the Government is restricting the maximum stake on FOBTs to £2 is brilliant news. At the same time, the government has announced a range of other measures, some to come in now and some that may be introduced in the future. And yesterday Monzo talked about what is going to be doing to help its customers self-exclude from gambling. Restricting FOBT stakes to … [Read more...]
DWP minister says SMI loan ‘can be backdated’
Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) is changing on 6 April 2018 from being paid as a welfare benefit to being given as a secured loan. Kit Malthouse, a DWP Minister, told Radio 4's Moneybox on 17 March that he was "relatively confident we will be in a good position when it [6 April] comes." He stated that people who did not apply for the new loan by then will be able to have it … [Read more...]
DWP chaos? Only 10,000 have agreed to new SMI loan
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)'s Economic and Fiscal Outlook paper, published today with the Chancellor's Spring Statement, has this statement: DWP has told us that all current claimants have been contacted about the intention to convert their [Support for Mortgage Interest] award into a loan and of those that have responded, over half have indicated they are not interested while less … [Read more...]
MoJ consultation on default CCJs
I have responded to the Ministry of Justice's consultation on Default County Court Judgements (CCJs). This consultation was started in December 2017, because of: concern about the potential adverse impact of a County Court judgment on individuals who, unaware that a judgment had been made against them, found months or years later that their credit rating had been damaged. This article expands on … [Read more...]