Portman announced the bribe for its 1.1 million members if they vote ‘yes’ to the Nationwide merger on Friday morning. The Saturday money sections go to press on Thursday night. Whoops. And only the indefatigable Ian Cowie got even a small piece in the Friday-night printed business pages in the main Saturday papers. The Sundays ignore it too apart from a paragraph in the Sunday Telegraph editorial. Memo to financial PRs – don’t release things at 0900 Fridays. Apart from this notable omission, the only theme this weekend is – there is no theme. OK the markets (volatile) and stamp duty (scrap it) and ISAs (end of tax year imminent) get their outings. And there is a surprising amount about schools and education with little financial angle at all. Three pieces look at the US property market and there are the customary attacks on the banks – charges high, attitudes cavalier. A couple of exclusives and the usual quirky stories, readers’ champions, and alternative investments make up the rest. A good read. Shame the weather was so nice.
Paul Lewis has been a freelance financial journalist for more than 20 years and currently presents Money Box on Radio 4 as well as writing two columns each month in Saga Magazine and weekly on its website. His book Live Long and Prosper is ‘all you need to know about pensions without the boring bits.’
SATURDAY
FT Money
Buy to let loan rates on a par with residential
says Steve Lodge in the section lead. The differential with owner occupier
mortgages creeps down to 0.25 of a percentage point – down from as much as one 1
point “in recent years”. Well that’s a bit vague but the point is well made and
warns against being too gung-ho at a time when interest rates may rise and
prices may fall. The commentators are easy picks – but Ray Boulger is always
such good value – so a good front page for FT readers spoiled only by an advert
masquerading as copy.
Tax shelter schemes capsized as
Revenue cuts loss limit
The headline – perhaps driven by the need for a nice nautical
illustration of a yacht heading for an iceberg – will also attract the FT
readers as Sharlene Goff warns that new plans to shelter City bonuses have been
‘capsized’ as the Revenue ‘waters down’ a scheme which used to allow huge start
up losses on wind farms or films to be set off against bonuses to minimise tax.
In future the scheme will be limited to £25,000. Barely enough to pay the
advisers’ fees. Shame.
Big rewards from the Big Top
I love Money Maverick. Mad things for eccentrics
to put their money into. This week, with a nod to Red Nose day, it is circus
memorabilia. But the ‘maverick’ has a head start on the rest of us. He is Gerry
Cottle of the eponymous circus. And he’s not clowning around, Bertram Mills
posters bought for £20 each a few years ago are not selling for £150. There are
around 600 circus memorabilia collectors – and of course a few fakers now
running off posters on a bubble jet. Roll up, roll up but it’s a tight- rope out
there.
Guardian
Money
Salesmen use legal compulsion ruse to flog car cover
is the rather confusing headline over a strong original story. New car salesmen
(yes the Guardian uses the non-gender-neutral term) are claiming the FSA compels
them to offer ‘gap’ insurance before the car sale can be completed. If you drive
from the forecourt straight into a wall, normal insurance will give you the
price of a one hour old car not a brand new one. Gap insurance covers that
difference. For only £150 or so. And earns great commission. Makes IFAs look
like beginners!
Does it still pay to be a rate tart?
asks Rupert Jones in the cover feature. Well sort
of maybe perhaps but the maths is tough to do, seems to be the conclusion. Which
is a shame because someone should look carefully at the arithmetic of those
£1000 arrangement fees with the great fixed rate over two years. But somehow
Rupert doesn’t quite get there.
Take note – this is what the £20 note
will look like next week
Above the headline is a picture of Bank of England
Governor Mervyn King holding a giant new style twentier – is inflation that
far above target Mervyn? Sean Coughlan’s piece is the only mention of next
week’s redesign and he reveals that the £20 is the most forged note. But maybe
not in future Chief Cashier Andrew Bailey admits “we can’t guarantee to produce
a note that can never be counterfeited” intake of breath “so we have to aim to
stay ahead of what the counterfeiters are trying to do.” Phew. Adam Smith
features on it. And both his hands are invisible.
The Daily
Telegraph Your Money
Your Money is always picture driven and we can
pass over the roller coaster (avoid stock market ups and downs with guaranteed
bonds), the bull and the bear (two competing views of the market), new parents
and four schoolgirls (school fees and education dilemmas) to reach Far too
Taxing to Ignore from Steve Ellis. It is a workmanlike guide to
self-assessment deadlines and where to get help. Nothing new (sorry Steve) but
timely advice for the panicking thousands who have already missed two deadlines
and are heading for a third. Several helpful accountants are talked to complete
with web addresses.
Drive for direct debits hits the poor
hardest
This kind of story is why DTYM is always worth reading. It explains just what it
says on the tin and devotes a whole page to the high charges made by utilities
such as BT and Virgin Media to those who do not pay by direct debit. Myra
Butterworth then brings in Monday’s report by Save the Children and Family
Welfare Association pointing out that it is poor families who choose the cash
and pre-pay options which are so much more expensive. Well done for bringing
these stories together.
The
Independent .Save & Spend
Finance Editor David Prosser must wonder how many
more main paper leads can be written by other people on finance stories. Today
the Indy front pages Revenge of the Banks as the paper continues its
campaign against the banks and their charges. Martin Hickman warns “banks have
begun introducing a range of “stealth” charges that will make them millions of
pounds as they recover from the financial sting of the mass revolt” – organised
by the Indy of course – “against penalty charges.” Good to see a main paper
tackling a personal finance issue day in day out. And the list of the banks’
iniquities is useful even if it does take too much credit for itself.
But on to .Save & Spend (note the dot) and, oh dear, poor Prosser is reduced to writing Bashed the banks? Now claim from your lender and “claim your share of a £100m mortgage windfall.” Good advice and some may have missed it when it was first written about.
Much better is Prosser’s Can’t find a dream home? Then create your own about the booming (apparently) self-build property market. Two nice cases studies and a family picture that would make the Daily Telegraph proud. Terence Blacker bought a field with a moat and built his own mansion. And the Allbrights (of the cute picture) have “built two homes and started a family.” Where do they get the time? There were 20,000 other self-builders (of homes not families) last year in a market worth £7 billion a year it says. Does that mean they cost £350,000 each?
The Times
money
Give parking profiteers a run for their money
takes us away from markets and ISAs and back to good old get-your-money-back
consumerism Up to 60% of the 8 million parking tickets may be illegal says
Andrew Ellson and he gives us a blow by blow account of how to get your fine
back. Sadly he misses out the key point that motorists get a discount if they
pay up quickly which is withdrawn once an appeal is lodged. A risk to balance
before trying for a refund.
Why you must act your age
is a straightforward guide by Helen Pridham to lifestyling a pension fund.
Although the advice to shift money every couple of years (by a quoted adviser)
may be more in the adviser’s interest than the investor’s, moving away from
shares as the happy (or fearful) day of retirement approaches is sound stuff.
And the brief decade by decade guide is fun – if only because it is so
reminiscent of those old Pearl Assurance adverts for pensions.
Look out for the thin end of the
wedge
This brilliantly headlined piece also by Ellson is about the £100 which Halifax
and First Direct are giving to new customers who really prove they are by moving
all their direct debits and so on and pay in a minimum amount each month.
Funnily enough this redistribution of some of their parent banks’ £17.5 billion
profits is not done out of generosity. No, they use it to gather information
about us, tempt us into second best accounts and then hope inertia will keep us
there. Scandalous.
SUNDAY
Financial Mail on Sunday
personal finance
Prudential pounces on investors’ £10bn
Richard Dyson is the only journalist to look ahead
to what he says will be this week’s announcement by Prudential bosses on how
they propose carving up £10 billion of spare assets. “one thing will be on their
minds” says Dyson “how to get their hands on policyholders’ money”. Though the
choices box gives the best odds – 8/10 – on leaving them where they are and
cutting costs.
Veterans are forced to hunt for car
insurance
says Helen Loveless and names Norwich Union as one
who won’t accept anyone over 70 as a new car insurance customer. More Than
specifies 79 and Tesco 80, though both will insure existing customers above that
age. Churchill though allows new customer to join up to age 90 and will insure
existing ones until they are 99. With lots of mentions of Help the Aged and Age
Concern do I see a silent trail for the report on age and insurance due out from
the charities and the ABI later this month?
How not to win the bank charge battle
warns against using the no-win no-fee claims
handlers who have sprung up to cash in on the (of course Mail’s) campaign to
recover bank penalty charges. After all why pay when these claims can – at the
moment – only succeed?
Sunday
Express Your Money
Taxpayers losing £500m
Old story alert as the Express leads on a report
by the National Audit Office that PAYE errors are costing taxpayers £500mn a
year. No mention of the 9 February publication date.
MPs warn over land-banking rip-off
A brief but tough warning “Savers should think
before signing up to a controversial type of property investment scheme” says
Chris Torney. And reports on a letter from Greg Mulholland MP to the OFT urging
it to clamp down after “a large number of…investors have been left nursing
losses.”
Savers lose out because Brown is
behind the times
says Holly Thomas who gives us a useful pre-Budget
reminder that the pension contribution limit for non-earners has stayed at £3600
since 2001 and the ISA limit remains frozen at its 1999 level of £7000. She also
points out that the IHT and Stamp Duty limits fail to keep up with house price
inflation.
Sunday Mirror
your money
Stub it out
says Melanie Wright in a one story section on
taking advantage of No Smoking day on Wednesday to kick the weed into the long
grass and – the finance angle – get cheaper life insurance. It would be complete
if she went on to say take it up again before buying an annuity!
Note wanted
Meanwhile the main Sunday Mirror says grubby old
fivers are falling apart while £1.3 billion of crisp new notes languish in Bank
of England vaults because cash machines are only topped up with £10 and £20
notes. Outrageous.
Sunday
Telegraph money & jobs
The death of the cheque?
There’s even a large mocked up gravestone above
this quarter page piece by Emma Simon on the growing number of retailers who
refuse to take cheques. I like this useful collation on the decline of the
cheque. Despite the picture she concludes that the cheque is far from dead –
hence the question mark in the headline but too late to pull the commissioned
artwork.
‘Higher-rate tax is now optional’
Which of the 3.25 million higher rate taxpayers
could resist John Greenwood’s piece with a headline like that – even though it
is in quotes? Not me. In fact the piece is no more (nor less) than a useful
reminder that any money put into a pension fund is deducted from income before
tax is worked out so every penny that would be taxed at 40% can in theory now go
into a pension and stop any higher rate tax being paid. But only for readers who
can afford to live on the £38,335 taxed at lower rates.
Critical illness cover needs
intensive care
A nice case study is at the centre of this
critique by Emma Simon. Reader Dean Turrell had to go to the Financial Ombudsman
three times to get his insurance payout of £88,000 after Norwich Union tried to
“wriggle out” of paying up following his heart attack. The excuse was that Dean
failed to mention an unrelated problem with his eyes. Sort this insurance
scandal out says Simon. Indeed.
Independent
on Sunday money
Cashless society by 2012, says Visa chief
Trailed on p1 of Business, this oft-made
prediction stopped me in my tracks and led me to the full interview with Visa’s
Pete Ayliffe. Although slightly non-plussed by reporter Tim Webb being charged
50p by Visa that very morning for renewing his Oyster travel card “By 2012,
Ayliffe believes that most customers will have dispensed with coins and notes
altogether.” Mmmmm.
First your ID is stolen then the
‘boys’ turn up
Well done Simon Dunn for a timely warning linking
the passage through Parliament of a Bill that will let bailiffs kick our front
doors down to recover debt with a strong story of a reader who was hounded by
for two years by bailiffs working for American Express over a debt run up by an
ID thief. If the Tribunals, Courts, and Enforcement Bill becomes law then “ID
fraudsters open the door, the bailiffs knock it down.” as the p1 stinger
suggests and it will all take far less than two years!
‘Super’ rates come with super strings
Dunn is back writing about the comic book
character of Super ISA. Launched by Abbey with “an eye-popping, jaw-dropping
rate of 8 per cent” and followed by Alliance & Leicester offering “Bam!...a
stonking 8.1%”. Exposing both as the complex “pulling wool over customers’ eyes”
deals they are, Dunn warns that investors need their own super powers – “eternal
vigilance on rates and X-ray vision on terms and conditions.” Really nice.
Observer cash
Brits beware getting burnt in Florida
Graham Norwood’s piece, complete with tempting
Florida mansions in acres of land for the price of a small terraced house in
London, warns that prices are falling, bad debts are rising and hurricanes
together with “nothing to do in the winter” make Florida a very risky place to
buy a home. Or even a mansion. In ten acres.
Victims of TalkTalk go to the courts
Lisa Bachelor’s opening says it all “Almost a year on from the launch of its
‘free broadband forever’ deal, TalkTalk has started writing cheques to
frustrated customers who…have taken their complaint to the small claims court.”
How refreshing to read a personal finance piece that does tell the story in para
1. Enough said!
Hedge funds come in form the cold
Ignore the tacky illustration of horses jumping
over, yes, a hedge, Peter Davy’s timely piece warns that small investors will
have to understand hedge funds soon as the FSA prepares to let them be sold
retail. The FSA’s Dan Waters calls them ‘reinvigorating’ and the FSA points out
the UK investors can already buy them through the EU single market. Conflicting
advisors say small investors should steer clear or alternatively may miss out on
opportunities due to fear or ignorance.
Christie’s and the fake vintage wine
Antony Barrett reports that some owners of rare
old bottles of wine which they paid more than $100,000 dollars each for may be
the victims of a hoax. Let’s hope so.
Money People
PRISALESS
Top story (in fact the only story here) and worst headline (anywhere) warns
“thrifty Brits” they have “just three weeks to take advantage of tax-free
Individual Savings Accounts” Well, sort of. But it does give a useful table of
the best-buy no-strings ISAs. Let’s hope readers are not tempted by other offers
of 8.1%.
Sunday Times
Money
Ministers guilty on Equitable…
…is the exclusive and uncompromising headline on
David Budworth’s confident prediction that Parliamentary Ombudsman Ann Abraham
will “within weeks” conclude that Government regulators were guilty of
“maladministration by failing to spot Equitable’s poor financial state in the
1990s”. Campaigners and others warn that even it happens “Ministers will try to
wriggle out” of paying the estimated £4 billion compensation that may be
demanded.
Revealed: Britain’s worst investments
No compromise here either as Kathryn Cooper lists
the endowments and pensions that are now worth less than the contributions paid
in over the last ten years. One reader complains he “might as well have put his
money under the mattress” though I wondered ‘which one’ looking at the large
home across the lawn where he is sitting. Royal & Sun Alliance, London Life,
Britannia, Colonial Mutual are just four on the shame list. All ‘with profits’
funds of course and there is strong advice to move the money to “more flexible
and transparent investments” by BestInvest’s Justin Modray, whose annual Spot
the Dog is the Crufts for rubbish funds.
Britain gets its first euro cash
machines
says Ali Hussain, but they are not a good way to
get your euros before travelling. It’s a catchy way to lead people into the
inevitable spring story about what is the cheapest way to convert pounds
into those pesky foreign currencies as holidays are planned. A good round up of
the costs and options within the newsy wrapper of the four Tescos where euro
cash machines have been fitted.
Beware: banks are out for revenge
Clare Francis pulls it off in this piece by
listing a plethora of scandalous overcharging from more annual fees to growing
foreign currency charges, from increasing balance transfer fees to shorter
interest free periods. All because, she says, “the banks are fighting back as
consumer power and watchdog action threaten their profits.” I wonder if there’s
a Crufts cup for watchdog action?