Dear listener,

Last weekend was more exciting than usual for the Money Box team. Shortly after our programme was broadcast live on Saturday reporting that Dunfermline Building Society was in trouble, the Financial Services Authority declared that the society had indeed failed and it became the first institution dealt with under the new Banking Act 2009. So we did a live update at the start of our Sunday repeat and looked ahead to what would happen on Monday morning. Which it duly did. More on that story this week.

Saturday is of course shared this week with the Grand National. And our editor was amused to see that one runner over the jumps this year is the Irish nine-year-old Offshore Account. Other horses with a financial flavour are Comply or Die, My Will, Parsons Legacy, Idle Talk, and for us journos of course Fleet Street. I also thought there was a Rambling Minister but in fact it is Rambling Minster. These are not tips of course. And rest assured that any jokes about the Gee Gee 20 Summit will not be allowed (my producer tells me).

*** ON MONEY BOX THIS SATURDAY ***

The official service that tells people how much state pension they will get has gone into meltdown as so many try to find out if they need to make extra National Insurance contributions before the price rises by 50% on Monday. We talk to the chief executive of the Pension Service about what has gone wrong and what he can do.

After the rescue of Dunfermline by the Treasury, Nationwide – which took over its safe assets – is now bigger than ever. It had already taken over two smaller societies this year and now has been given Dunfermline's 300,000 customers as well. Nationwide is now much bigger than all the other 52 societies put together. Is it in effect a bank?

A tiny rise in house prices does not indicate that the collapse of the house price bubble has ended. But as prices (generally) fall some estate agents tell us that surveyors are undervaluing property because of fears that lenders will sue them if they overvalue it. Everyone involved denies doing anything wrong.

We will be looking again at exactly what investments in "cash" funds are actually invested in.

And there are two other stories currently being examined but we are not quite sure which – or if either – will make it to the programme.

Find out what's in and what's out by listening to Money Box, Saturday at noon. Or if you miss that, the repeat (hopefully without a live insert!) is on Sunday at 9pm. To make sure you never miss Money Box why not subscribe to our podcast? Just go to our website http://www.bbc.co.uk/moneybox where you can also listen online, Have Your Say, find out more about items on the programme, or watch videos.

Best wishes,

Paul

PS: Don't forget the programme taster on BBC Breakfast between quarter to nine and nine o'clock. If you miss it, you can watch it on our website.

e-mail Paul Lewis