This email was sent to Money Box subscribers on 23 October 2009

Dear listener

 

I try to avoid meetings. They are not what humans were designed for. OK I also try to avoid chasing wild animals across the savannah and gathering nuts and berries. But I still think that is much more what our eyes, hands, and brains are best at. Perhaps even the simplest hunt really did start with a planning meeting. Maybe someone even took notes. Who knows. But anyway four in a week is just too many.

 

Should your bank current account be free to use if you stay in credit? A lot of people think they should not. That only by paying for the smooth transmission of money and the timely application of direct debits will we really appreciate them. And when the cross subsidy from hefty overdraft charges ends then banks will inevitably start charging us for those services. But will they? Which one will move first? Won’t customers desert it in droves? And what about the pensioner living on £130 a week whose money now has to be paid into a bank? Is she going to be charged £10 a month? No one had any answer to those questions. I so prefer interviews.

 

Next up was Tim Jones head of the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority. He told me that despite the delay in starting the automatic enrolment of employees into a pension scheme until October 2012 and the long phasing in until October 2016 that his launch date was in fact April 2011 – or in fact what he calls Q2 2011 which runs from 1 April to 30 June. That is when the personal accounts bit of personal accounts will be available for volunteers – both employers and self-employed people – to join. And with charges kept down to 0.5% a year, wait for the rush.

 

Later, a tableful of us discussed if the consensus in pensions had broken down? Maybe, we thought. But probably not. If it ever existed. It took us an hour and a half to reach that conclusion. The antelope would certainly get away from that lot.

 

Meeting four was about training the next generation of financial advisers. More on that in future programmes.

 

If April is the cruellest month then October is the kindest. Because it is this time of year that those nice number crunchers at the Office for National Statistics tell us we have longer to live. A lot longer. Which is great. Unless you have to pay pensions. In which case October is a very expensive month with men of 65 gaining 11 weeks and women seven. A woman of 65 can now expect to live until she is a month short of 89. And a man until a few weeks after he is 86. With no work to do perhaps they should take all the meetings?

 

AND IN THE BEST RADIO PROGRAMME AND FINANCIAL PROGRAMME OF THE YEAR ….

 

Mortgages – the Financial Services Authority is planning to step in and clamp down on irresponsible lending. But not just yet. The FSA head of retail markets tells us why.

Charges up thousands of percent. And no incentive to keep your overdraft down. Just two of the angry comments we have had about Halifax Bank of Scotland’s changes to charges for authorised overdrafts. Six million customers will move to the new regime on 6 December.

 

In the Netherlands thousands of customers who didn’t like the way DSB bank lent money and charged for insurance took their money out. This week the bank went bankrupt. Was this consumer revenge? Or foolhardy media manipulation?

 

And why did HMRC take £250 million from older people that it had no right to? And how can they get it back?

Those four are pretty definite runners this week. But as ever the only way to find out what is in the programme is to tune in to Radio 4 Saturday at noon, listen to the repeat is Sunday at 9pm, or log on to the website. Alternatively subscribe to the podcast on bbc.co.uk/moneybox where you can also read stuff, watch videos, follow up items, download transcripts and documents, and send us things you want us to look into.

 

Best wishes,

 

Paul

 

PS Don’t forget the programme taster on BBC Breakfast between quarter to nine and nine o’clock.

 


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