This email was sent to Money Box subscribers on 8 January 2010

 

Dear Listener

 

The Bank of England’s decision to keep interest rates at 0.5%, analyst Duncan Higgins said this week, ‘is unlikely to raise too many eyebrows’. Phew. I slept much easier after learning that the number of eyebrows raised will not be excessive. But by morning I was fretting again. What would constitute too many? (I mean in the City not for individuals, for whom it is clearly three). Who counts them? How high does an eyebrow have to be to count as ‘raised’?

 

Then I realised that this subtle Higgins index is not of eyebrows ACTUALLY being raised but of eyebrows LIKELY to be raised. So it is even harder to assess from the first twitch the likelihood of any particular eyebrow becoming actually being raised. How on earth do you count that? At this point FSA rules demand that I warn you eyebrows can go down as well as up. And that you may lose some or all of your breakfast in them – if you are Dennis Healey.

 

On this new and useful measure I give two very raised eyebrows and a sad grimace (quite difficult at the same time) to the news that the Government’s semi-compulsory and much delayed workplace pension scheme has been rebranded. Once called ‘Personal Accounts’ it will now be known as National Employment Savings Trust or – yes, you guessed it – NEST. I have been asking for years that the daft name ‘personal accounts’ be changed to something more sensible, preferably including the word ‘pension’ which is what it is.

 

Every Pensions Minister I have raised it with has said the name should be changed. And Tim Jones the Chief Executive of the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority has told me twice that it would be changed. And now it has been. Sadly, the wait for something more sensible continues. And no puns please. The fledgling scheme, which won’t be hatched until October 2012, might not ever fly if the next Government gives it the bird. And then NEST would leave egg on everyone’s face. Tweet tweet.

 

ON TO THE AGENDA FOR SATURDAY IN THE THREE-PRIZE-WINNING MONEY BOX

 

How fast is faster payments going? As the banks see it – Howfastisfasterpaymentsgoing. But as some listeners see it – H o w   f  a  s  t    i   s     f   a   s   t   e   r      p    a    y    m    e    n    t    s        g     o      i       n        g? You get the idea. You will remember that in May 2008 we were all promised virtually instant clearing for money sent electronically rather than it being carried around the City for three days by men in bowler hats. And to be fair (which we always are) it does work now for many payments. But not for many others. We ask ‘why’ and more important ‘when’. Or rather ‘when oh when oh when?’

 

And still on Déjàvu Street, another bank refused to refund a listener after thieves took £1000 from his account using his card and his PIN. And that is despite new FSA rules that say banks – even if suspicious about whose fault it was – should refund first and ask questions later.

 

Then it’s back to pensions (to give them their old-fashioned name) and experts slug it out over whether it is more sensible to put money into a tax-free ISA than a tax-free pension. And another will even recommend tax efficient bonds….

 

Is it worth scrapping your old boiler now to get the £400 scrappage grant from the Government?

 

And are you due a share of £50 million?

 

Find out by avoiding the snow and ice and staying in to listen to Radio 4 on Saturday at noon, or the repeat on Sunday at 9pm, or the website www.bbc.co.uk/moneybox where you can listen at any time. And there you can also read stuff, watch videos, follow up items, download transcripts and documents, and send us stories or ideas you want us to look into, send us your NEST puns. And of course Have Your Say on this week’s topic – not confirmed yet.

 

Best wishes,

 

Paul

 

PS Don’t forget the programme preview on Breakfast BBC 1 soon after 0845 on Saturday. 


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