Dear listener,

I know I said “hello, I’m back” last week but I’m going to say it again because this is the first of the new series of Money Box which will bring you money news and information every Saturday from now until eternity – well, 18 July 2009 anyway. So. Hello. Money Box is back.

It’s been a very 21st Century week with a High Street bank (Bradford & Bingley) making a substantial loss rather than huge profits and another major security breach when bank details of a million people turned up on a laptop sold on eBay for £35. But I have actually spent much of this week tucked away in the comfort of the 19th Century working once more on the letters of my favourite writer Wilkie Collins.

I like it back then. OK, they did not have antibiotics, computers, or aeroplanes and a trip to the dentist was worse than most nightmares. But they had a very simple way to keep things secret – burn them. Because when you wrote a letter to someone you did actually write it - by hand, with a pen, dipped in ink. And if it contained anything secret or sensitive, the recipient could just put it on the fire and that was it. Because there were no copies. In September 1860 Charles Dickens burned thousands of letters from hundreds of eminent people on a bonfire in his garden in Kent. He wasn’t alone. Burning letters was almost a national pastime.

But a 150 years later, information on everyone in the UK can be stored on something no bigger than a piece of chalk and copied thousands of times at the push of a button. So despite the title of the Coen brothers new film “Burn After Reading” we no longer can. And we have not got to grips with how to balance the need to know everything about everybody with our natural desire for privacy.

Anyway before you say “Get on with it and tell us what is in the first edition of Money Box”, I will do just that.

Listen. Is that the sound of a stable door shutting as the beat of horses’ hooves fades into the distance? The British Banker’s Association has produced guidelines on how quickly banks should work when customers want to transfer their cash ISA from one bank to another. The guidance comes after an unprecedented number of complaints in the summer about  l o n g  delays. Some even   l  o  n  g  e  r   than that. Delays cost savers interest and damage competition. But will the new guidelines help?

We’ll hear later today just how much of Bradford & Bingley is owned by its High Street rivals. On the programme we will ask what that means for competition and look at the future of this loss-making bank.

There’s a top story on legal battles over how much money relatives should get if they care for a child when the parents can’t.

And we’ll be catching up on mortgages and the housing market – including how estate agents are managing now their business is drying up. And on a cheerier note (if you have savings) we may have time for a quick round up of the best places for your cash.

I hope you are all as glad we’re back as we all are to be back. And here, as Cilla Black used to say, is a quick reminder.

Money Box is live on Saturday at noon and repeated (but not of course live) on Sunday at nine pm. Last season listeners downloaded more than a million podcasts of the programme. So why not try it? And listen whenever, wherever and with whoever shares your headphones? Download that podcast!

Best wishes,

Paul Lewis

PS Don’t forget the programme taster on BBC One’s Breakfast this Saturday just after 0845. And if you do forget it or miss it you can now see it on our website all week. So I had better get it right!

e-mail Paul Lewis