Consumers report problems using bank’s app on one of the busiest shopping days of year, Black Friday
Thousands of HSBC customers reported they were unable to access its online and mobile banking services on one of the busiest online shopping days of the year – Black Friday.
More than 4,000 customers said they could not access their accounts via the HSBC app on Friday, according to Downdetector, which tracks and collates website outages and complaints.
Continue reading...Ofgem increases minimum price for energy suppliers to charge customers after rise in global gas prices
Households will begin the new year with a 5% increase in energy bills after the regulator raised the price cap to an average of £1,928 a year for the typical gas and electricity bill.
Ofgem raised the maximum price that energy suppliers can charge their customers from £1,834 a year for the typical household between October to December, after a rise in global gas market prices after the start of the Israel-Hamas war last month.
Continue reading...Equal Pay Day report from Fawcett Society blames lack of flexible working in well-paid high-quality jobs
UK women aged 40 and older will not experience the closure of the gender pay gap until after they reach state pension age, according to a report by the Fawcett Society.
The Equal Pay Day 2023 report, “Making flexible working the default”, found that on average working women take home £574 a month less than men – or £6,888 a year.
Forty per cent of unemployed women said access to flexible work would enable them to take on paid work. Almost a third of unemployed men said the same.
Women were significantly more likely to report working part-time (27%) compared with men (14%).
About 77% of women agreed that they would be more likely to apply for a job that advertised flexible working options.
Continue reading...Amid less gloomy OBR forecasts the chancellor is expected to take first steps towards cutting personal taxes
Jeremy Hunt will announce 110 measures to boost Britain’s stagnant economy and bow to demands from anxious Tory MPs for tax cuts when he delivers his second autumn statement on Wednesday.
In one of the last set-piece economic events before the general election, the chancellor will pledge to “turbo charge” growth while taking the first steps to cut personal taxes after recent sharp increases.
Continue reading...Leading property firms also call for more tax breaks and improved transport links to hubs ahead of autumn statement
The UK needs to build more laboratory space, improve transport links and offer more tax breaks to achieve Rishi Sunak’s ambition of becoming a science superpower, two leading property firms have argued ahead of the autumn statement.
Demand for laboratories in the UK is growing fast, with lab vacancy rates of just 1% in Cambridge and London, and 7% in Oxford, according to a report by British Land, one of Britain’s biggest property developers, and the upmarket estate agency and advisory firm Savills.
Continue reading...The chancellor’s potential inheritance tax cut in Wednesday’s budget would aid millionaires amid a cost of living crisis
Jeremy Hunt faces a backlash from “red wall” Tory MPs if he uses a fiscal windfall of up to £20bn to deliver tax cuts for the rich rather than to help ordinary families with the cost of living, the Observer has been told.
The chancellor and Rishi Sunak are this weekend finalising an autumn statement on Wednesday that could include a major reduction in inheritance tax – four-fifths of which would benefit those with more than £1m at their death, according to a new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). Each person with more than £1m would receive an average tax cut of £180,000, the IFS states.
Continue reading...NS&I, Shawbrook and Tandem among providers to make reductions amid flurry of such moves
Savers have been urged to act quickly if they want to get the best returns on their money after a flurry of interest rate cuts on top-paying accounts.
This week NS&I reduced the rate it offers on its three-year green bonds from 5.7% to 3.95%, while Shawbrook, Tandem and Ford Money were among other providers making cuts.
Continue reading...ONS says average price dropped 0.1% year on year in September, with those in London decreasing 1.1%
The average price of a home in the UK dropped by 0.1% in the year to September, official figures show – the first annual fall for more than a decade.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures, which are based on completed sales, have shown annual price inflation slowing since July 2022, when the headline rate stood at 13.8%.
Continue reading...Families resorting to ‘desperate measures’ and struggling with ‘frightening’ level of hardship amid cost of living crisis
About 2m UK households have been forced to turn off their fridge or freezer to save money as they continue to struggle with what poverty campaigners called a “frightening” level of hardship.
Nearly half of those households said that since May they had to disconnect their fridge or freezer for the first time, a sign the cost of living crisis was still hurting low-income families, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) charity.
Continue reading...Government’s Energy Company Obligation has managed to upgrade only 65,000 homes since April 2022, figures show
Labour has attacked the Conservatives over the speed of government efforts to upgrade Britain’s draughty housing stock, as analysis showed a leading household energy efficiency initiative was proceeding at what the party called a “glacial pace”.
Just 65,000 homes have been upgraded under the government’s Energy Company Obligation (Eco) scheme since it was relaunched in April last year, according to analysis of statistics released by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
Continue reading...Upmarket estate agent says prices will start to bottom out in 2024 as interest rates fall and will return to growth in 2025
Britain’s housing market is past “peak pain” and prices look likely to bottom out by next summer, according to the estate agency Savills.
The average UK house price is projected to fall by 3% in 2024, after a 4% drop this year, the upmarket estate agent and property advisory firm said in its five-year outlook.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak signalled changes in the king’s speech that create a policy divide with Labour
The government has confirmed its plans to grant new North Sea oil and gas licences every year at the opening of parliament, deepening a political fault line between the Conservatives and Labour, and angering environmental campaigners who argue it undermines efforts to reach net zero. Here, we examine the move.
Continue reading...Drop in retail sales also because of consumer worries over high energy bills and mortgages, surveys suggest
Fears that the UK is heading for a recession this winter have intensified amid signs Britain’s hard-pressed households are cutting spending as they save for Christmas and higher fuel bills.
Two monthly snapshots of retail activity found shops and online outlets struggling because of consumer budgets being squeezed by dearer mortgages and the UK’s lingering cost of living crisis.
Continue reading...Exclusive: recruitment and retention crisis means only 17% of nurseries say they could offer extra entitlement
A mass exodus of childminders and nursery staff risks scuppering the government’s flagship new funding for parents of young children in England, according to a new coalition of early years providers and campaigners.
More than half of all nursery workers surveyed by the Early Education and Childcare Coalition (EECC) said they were considering or planning on leaving the sector in the next 12 months.
Continue reading...Cost and difficulties of balancing work and childcare has led one in 10 to quit, says Fawcett Society
About a quarter of a million mothers with young children have left their jobs because of difficulties with balancing work and childcare, according to a report by an equal rights charity that calls for the end of the “motherhood penalty”.
This juggling act, as well as the punitive cost, has led more than 249,124 working mothers of children aged four or under to leave their employer, according to the Fawcett Society.
Continue reading...Higher interest rates and move away from cash isas means hundreds of thousands more people may be hit
Higher interest rates look set to land hundreds of thousands more people with an unwelcome tax bill for their savings, a financial advice firm warned this week.
A couple of years ago it was typically only the wealthiest with very big nest eggs who had to pay tax on their savings interest – but now someone with an emergency savings pot of about £8,000 could find themselves falling foul of this little-known tax trap.
Continue reading...Sadiq Khan hails ‘huge progress’ as progress report finds more than 95% of vehicles are now compliant
The number of the most polluting vehicles driven in London has fallen by almost half since the capital’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) was expanded, taking almost 80,000 older cars off the roads.
About 77,000, or 45%, fewer non-compliant cars and vans were detected on average a day in September, the first month of operation of the expanded zone – compared with June 2023.
Continue reading...Payments group and TV shopping channel change small print after financial regulator steps in
The City regulator has taken action after finding that customers of two leading buy now, pay later providers were “at risk of harm” because of potentially unfair and unclear small print.
The US-based online payments group PayPal and the TV shopping channel QVC have changed the terms of their contracts after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) expressed “concern” over the impact to customers.
Continue reading...Shortfalls fuelled by misconceptions and distrust of employers, as well as lack of spare income, figures show
A UK individual from a minority ethnic background typically has a pension pot less than half the size of that belonging to the average white British saver, data reveal.
The research from Legal & General’s investment arm claimed there was a sizeable “ethnicity pensions gap” in the UK that was being fuelled by “misconceptions” around pensions and a “significant distrust of employers”, as well as a lack of spare income.
Continue reading...Britain’s biggest mortgage lender forecasts 5% drop over this year and another 2.4% decline in 2024
UK house prices will continue to slide this year and in 2024 and will not start to recover until 2025, Lloyds Banking Group has forecast.
The lender, which owns Halifax and is Britain’s largest mortgage provider, said that by the end of 2023 UK house prices would have fallen 5% over the course of the year and were likely to decrease by another 2.4% in 2024.
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