The UK government is considering freezing, or even lowering the minimum wage due to fears that it could be damaging the economy and outing businesses off of creating new jobs. The current minimum wage is £6.19 an hour for anyone over the age of 21, £4.98 for those aged 18-20 and £3.68 for 16 and […]
Category: Finance
Categories Finance News
RAF flies emergency loan fund to Cyprus
Amid fears that British troops might not have access to money deposited to their bank accounts that are based in Cyprus. The RAF is flying 1million euros in cash to the island so that military personnel will be able to have access to an emergency loan. The move by the Ministry of Defence is to […]
Categories Finance News
RBS and NatWest allow mobile users to exchange money without account details
People are already familiar with the concept of transferring cash without needing to get hold of the sort code or account number of people thanks to Barclays’ PingIt service for smartphones. The PingIt app allows people to transfer money from one mobile number to another, and now RBS are looking to get on board with […]
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Food Poverty Hits 5million UK Households
A report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research has claimed that around 4.7 million homes in the UK are now living in food poverty. Food poverty is defined in the reports as spending 10% or more of household income on food. Whilst the 10% mark may not sound like a lot, this is […]
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Bank of England Talks of Negative Interest Rates
The Bank of England has shown that it is considering something that, previously, would have been thought utterly ludicrous, as the deputy governor for financial stability, Paul Tucker, suggested that the Bank might consider setting the base interest rate in the negatives. The reasoning behind it is that, with a negative interest rate, lenders would […]
Categories Finance News
Savings Took Further Hit in Last Six Months of 2012
Households once again found themselves resorting to drawing on their savings in order to get them through the last six months of 2012, with ING Direct’s Consumer Savings Monitor reporting that savings fell by an average of £362 over the period. Whilst the average rate of debt also fell, it looks like people may have […]
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Further Squeeze on Household Budgets Thanks to Petrol
More and more households are finding that their budgets are being squeezed even more thanks to a recent rise in petrol prices. Despite the chancellor saying that petrol duty wouldn’t increase in order to protect motorists, he can’t control the price of oil, which has gone up and brought petrol prices with it. Inflation and […]
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RBS hit with £390m of fines from Libor Scandal
The amount that the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will have to pay out in fines due to the bank’s role in the Libor rigging scandal has finally been revealed, and it stands at a massive £390million. This is a big jump from the £290million that Barclays was required to pay, and shows that the […]
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UK Economy Shrinks by 0.3% in Last Three Months of 2012
The Office for National Statistics has revealed the figures for the UK’s GDP in the last three months of 2012 and delivered the news that the economy shrank by 0.3% from the beginning of October to the end of December 2012. This is much larger than the 0.1% contraction which had been predicted by most […]
Categories Finance News
World Economic Forum Warns of Danger of Debts
The huge amount of debt that is built up around the world is a major concern, according to a report issued by the World Economic Forum (WEF) ahead of its annual meeting. Listing five factors that posed the biggest threat to global economic stability, the loans that governments around the world depend upon were highlighted. […]