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As the pandemic enters its second year, what have we learned? The World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic on 11 March 2020, coincidentally the day that Chancellor Rishi Sunak presented his first Budget. At the time, the Chancellor announced a £12bn stimulus to counter the impact of the pandemic. By November, the Office of […]
Taking some time to start planning for 2021/22 now can be worthwhile. While there is often a focus on planning for the end of the tax year, much less attention is paid to the start of the tax year. The lack of an obvious deadline is probably one reason – deadlines tend to […]
Interest rates matter. At the personal finance end of the spectrum, they determine what you earn from bank deposits (virtually nothing at present) and what interest you pay on your mortgage (about 4.4% if you are paying the average standard variable rate (SVR), but much less for most other loans). In the investment and commercial […]
The average deposit paid by first-time home buyers jumped by £10,000 in 2020. When the pandemic took hold in the first half of last year, it looked as if the housing market was heading for a fall, if not something more dramatic. There were problems regarding viewing properties, arranging surveys, organising removals – you name […]
New warnings have been issued from Action Fraud, the City of London Police and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as reports of ‘clone firm’ investment scams increase. The ongoing financial impact of coronavirus may also make people more susceptible to these types of clone scams. Forty two percent of investors say they are currently worried […]
Is your child reaching the age of 18? If so, they could be amongst a huge swathe of teenagers set to cash in on their Child Trust Funds for the first time. Set up by the Labour government in 2002, the scheme aimed to encourage parents to save for their children’s future, with the money […]