Category Archives: Money

Average UK house asking price registers steepest monthly drop for 20 years

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Rightmove blames the 1.2% fall in new sellers’ prices on the end of stamp duty discounts and more homes coming on to the market

The average price of homes coming up for sale dropped by the largest monthly amount in more than 20 years in July, according to a property website, after the end of temporary cuts to stamp duty, and recent increases in council tax on second homes.

The average price being asked by new sellers fell by 1.2%, or £4,531, in July compared with a month earlier, to £373,709.

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Ministers to revive Blair-era Pensions Commission to tackle savings crisis

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Revived body will examine future of the retirement system as analysis shows pensioner income is set to fall

The government is resurrecting the Pensions Commission, amid fears that a retirement crisis could mean today’s workers will be poorer in retirement than the current crop of pensioners.

The move by ministers to revive the landmark commission, established by Tony Blair’s government in 2002, comes as analysis shows that the income of pensioners is set to fall in the coming decades.

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New ‘buy now, pay later’ affordability checks may cover even smallest loans

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City watchdog publishes details of its plans to regulate the BNPL market, which has now grown to £13bn

Lenders may have to carry out affordability checks on even the smallest buy now, pay later loans under new rules drawn up by the City watchdog.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)on Friday published details of its plan to regulate the £13bn buy now, pay later (BNPL) market.

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Sick pay changes could benefit UK firms by up to £2bn, TUC says

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Exclusive: Analysis shows covering part of salaries from first day off can boost productivity and employee retention

Changes to sick pay to cover part of workers’ salaries from the first day off could end up benefiting British businesses by as much as £2bn, according to analysis commissioned by the UK’s main union body.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC), which is pushing for the government to stick with its plans for workers’ rights, said modelling showed businesses would gain benefits of £2.4bn thanks to productivity boosts, while facing direct costs of £425m to pay for extra sick days.

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Father given £1,173 refund from nursery in England after ‘top-up’ fees investigation

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Preschool establishment asked for extra compulsory fee for ‘consumables’ – but it should have been free

A nursery has refunded a father almost £1,200 after an investigation found he had been charged mandatory “top-up” fees for hours of childcare that should have been free.

Tiago Gomes’s daughter was eligible for government-funded childcare at the Lake House day nursery and preschool in Bristol but he was told that he must pay an extra compulsory fee for “consumables”.

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ASA cracks down on online pharmacies advertising weight loss injections

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Watchdog releases nine new rulings setting clear precedents for online selling

Online pharmacies are no longer allowed to run adverts for weight loss injections, the advertising watchdog has ruled, as part of a crackdown on what has been described as a “wild west” culture of online selling.

In the UK, advertising prescription-only medications (POMs) – which includes all weight loss jabs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro – to the public is illegal. However, a Guardian investigation previously found some online pharmacies either breaking these rules outright, or exploiting grey areas to peddle the medications to the public.

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First-time buyers turn from rural areas to Britain’s regional cities

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Number looking to move to urban centres up 16% in first five months of 2025 compared with same period in 2015

With the rise of home working and surging house prices in many urban areas, one might have assumed that British cities had lost some of their appeal to homebuyers over the past decade, but it turns out the opposite is the case.

An analysis of the first five months of this year shows the number of would-be first-time buyers in Great Britain looking to move to cities is up by 16% on average compared with the same period in 2015.

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Lifetime Isas ‘could lead to savers making poor investment choices’, MPs say

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Committee says products may not be best use of public money and may have been mis-sold to people on certain benefits

Lifetime Isas could lead to savers making poor investment decisions and may not be the best use of public money, a cross-party committee of MPs has said.

In a report published on Monday, the Treasury select committee described rules which penalise benefit claimants as “nonsensical” and concluded that lifetime Isas, known as Lisas, may have been mis-sold to savers eligible for universal credit or housing benefit.

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Zopa launches current account with cashback and 7.1% on savings

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Digital bank hopes to tempt switchers with package including in-credit interest and fee-free travel spending

The battle for bank customers intensified this week, with a new player entering the UK current account market and offering cashback on bills and access to a savings account paying 7.1%.

Digital bank Zopa is hoping the perks – which also include in-credit interest and fee-free spending abroad – will tempt switchers to its first day-to-day account.

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UK energy meter switch-off delayed amid fears over heating and higher bills

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RTS meters in 300,000 homes to be phased out rather than turned off on 30 June deadline

As the temperature climbed towards 30C the peril of turning off a system that could leave people with their heating stuck on full must have looked like an avoidable disaster.

On Thursday ministers confirmed the “widespread switch-off” of the Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS), which controls an old type of electricity meter, “will not happen” on 30 June.

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Students in England now graduate with average debt of £53,000, data shows

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Student Loans Company figures show 10% jump in a year as individuals increase borrowing to meet cost of living

Students in England are finishing their degrees with government loans averaging £53,000, a jump of 10% in a year, as they increase their borrowing to meet the rising cost of living.

The Student Loans Company (SLC) has released figures showing individual loan balances were £5,000 higher in 2024-25 than a year earlier, when the average in England was £48,270.

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UK petrol prices poised to rise as Israel-Iran conflict pushes up cost of oil

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Oil price increase likely to add 5p to petrol and diesel over the next couple of months, expert says

Britons are braced for higher prices at the pumps, after a rise in oil prices caused by the conflict between Israel and Iran in recent days.

Oil prices climbed again on Monday, as traders worried about the risks of a broader regional military conflict, which could disrupt supplies. Iran is a big oil producer, and accounts for about 3% of global supplies.

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UK mortgage guarantee scheme due to end with no news on replacement

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More than 53,000 mortgages have been completed using scheme, which encourages lenders to offer up to 95% loans

A government scheme to encourage UK lenders to offer 95% mortgages is scheduled to end this month, with no word yet on when its replacement will be launched.

The mortgage guarantee scheme went live in April 2021 to help buyers with small deposits get on the property ladder.

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Sports Direct pricing practices ‘may be breaking the law’, Which? says

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Consumer group makes claims of ‘some questionable and dodgy pricing tactics’ on retailer’s website

Sports Direct could be breaking the law by misleading shoppers into thinking they are getting a good deal, a consumer body has claimed, after it looked at prices of items ranging from trainers to hoodies.

Which? said it had reported the retailer to the Competition and Markets Authority after uncovering what it claimed were “some questionable and dodgy pricing tactics” on its website.

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Shein accused of ‘shaming’ customers into buying more than they can afford

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Consumer watchdogs accuse Chinese fashion firm of ‘dark’ practices in formal complaint to European Commission

Consumer watchdogs from 21 countries have filed a formal complaint to EU authorities about alleged “dark” practices by the Chinese fast fashion firm Shein including the “shaming” of customers into buying more than they can afford.

The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) has submitted a 29-page dossier to the European Commission citing multiple examples of “dark patterns”, or deceptive techniques designed to encourage purchases.

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100,000 UK taxpayer accounts hit in £47m phishing attack on HMRC

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MPs on Treasury committee hear that those affected were being contacted and would face ‘no financial loss’

HM Revenue & Customs has lost £47m after a phishing scam breached tens of thousands of tax accounts, a group of MPs has heard.

Two senior civil servants at the tax authority told the Treasury committee that 100,000 people had been contacted, or were in the process of being contacted, after their accounts were locked down in what the officials said was an “organised crime” incident that began last year.

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Millions of legal immigrants’ lives upended after social security freeze

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Program halted suddenly, leaving legal immigrants unable to work due to lack of US social security number

Millions of legal immigrants may be left unable to work after the US Social Security Administration quietly instituted a rule change to stop automatically issuing them social security numbers.

The Enumeration Beyond Entry program is an agreement between the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, where US Citizenship and Immigration Services would provide social security with information from applicants for work authorization or naturalization.

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Vet complaint process in UK often ‘stacked against pet owners’

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Consumer group Which? says owners are put off complaining and system for doing so is not fit for purpose

Britain’s pet owners often face an uphill struggle when they are unhappy with their vet because the industry’s complaints system is not fit for purpose, according to a leading consumer body.

The findings from Which? that the complaints process “is often stacked against pet owners” come as the UK competition watchdog is investigating the veterinary sector amid concerns that above-inflation price hikes and other issues mean consumers are not getting a fair deal.

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‘Remote purchase’ fraud in UK surges as customers tricked into disclosing passcodes

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Banks say every day 7,000 incidents take place where scammers get people to disclose unique set of numbers

Banks are reporting a surge in a type of fraud where customers are tricked into disclosing online login passcodes they are sent, which has helped to fuel a 22% jump in crimes where scammers go shopping using people’s stolen details.

The banking body UK Finance revealed that “remote purchase” fraud hit its highest-ever level in 2024, with almost 2.6m cases logged, which works out at more than 7,000 incidents a day, or almost five a minute.

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UK employees work from home more than most global peers, study finds

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Exclusive: Staff in Britain now average 1.8 days a week of remote working, above global average of 1.3 days

UK workers continue to work from home more than nearly any of their global counterparts more than five years after the pandemic first disrupted traditional office life, a study has found.

UK employees now average 1.8 days a week of remote working, above the international average of 1.3 days, according to the Global Survey of Working Arrangements (G-SWA), a worldwide poll of more than 16,000 full-time, university-educated workers across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa that began in July 2021.

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