Moneyblog

It won’t shock you to read that bank branches are closing. They’re expensive to run, and fewer customers are using them. In fact just 11% of the UK population now prefers visiting a branch to carry out their banking business. But behind these simple facts is a rather grim reality. In the next few years, many consumers will count themselves lucky to live near an old post office branch moonlighting as the last bank standing. This is pretty worrying stuff. And how we’ve got to this point has a dash of Bell Pottinger wizardry about it. It’s so bizarre that I’ve been forced to scavenge the depths of the English

The UK economy suffers from low productivity. Productivity measures output per person, or per time worked. If productivity was higher across the economy then people could work less, or be paid more, or both. Productivity drives an economy’s output and thus its potential growth rate and, in turn, living standards. So low productivity economies find to hard to keep up with high productive ones. This is not a new problem. Ahead of the financial crisis the UK was making progress in closing the productivity gap that existed with major competitors such as the US. Since the crisis, though, all western economies have suffered. At various times over the last decade this

Locking away your money for a fixed amount of time often means that better interest rates apply. Here are some of the best fixed-term (of over four years) accounts available at the moment, according to data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.

This weekend the papers mooted that Theresa May’s government is looking to cut the English and Welsh student loan interest rate – now at a 6.1% headline rate for those who began uni in or after 2012 – in order to appeal to the youth vote. I find this frustrating. Not because I object; I’ve always believed on principle student loan interest shouldn’t be higher than inflation – charging students for their education is one thing, charging them for the financing of their education is a step too far. Yet if the Exchequer has limited resources to finally shell out something to relieve student loan pressures, cutting the interest rate is

Economists disagree on lots of things, but on one thing at least there is a consensus. Productivity, or the efficiency of production, is the main driver of human welfare. The data bear this out. Consider that growth in living standards in the UK since the late nineteenth century has been driven entirely by rising productivity. It is not surprising that improving productivity is the Holy Grail of economic policy. This is why the stagnation in productivity growth since the financial crisis represents such a challenge. Stagnating productivity means stagnating living standards and public services. To some such outcomes calls into question the legitimacy of the economic system. There are four broad

Over half of individuals over the age of 50 have described themselves as ‘entrepreneurs’, shaking up the popular perception of start-up founders being twenty something tech whizz-kids or trendy millennials from Silicon Valley. The survey carried out by the Institute of Directors (IOD) and published in a new report, the ‘Age of the Older Entrepreneur’ shows that the over 50s are increasingly using their pension pots to start up their own businesses, rather than spending their twilight years buying a Maserati or sunning themselves in the Algarve. ‘It is a cause for celebration that an increasing number of experienced workers are going it alone as entrepreneurs. I have long been

As a new school term starts, this often spells an expensive shopping list for parents. School uniforms that no longer fit, new schoolbooks and lunchboxes; research shows that the average parent spends £170 on each of their children at the start of a new school year. But although much of that spending can’t be avoided – after all, you can hardly send your child back to school with shoes that don’t fit – there is another area of the back-to-school routine where we might be missing a financial trick. Why? Well because the average child has £302 worth of gadgets in their school rucksack. Even among the under 6’s, one

With interest rates so low, it’s no surprise to read that the amount of cash being put into ISAs has fallen dramatically in the last year. In 2015-2016, £58.7bn was paid into cash ISA accounts. In the most recent financial year, that fell by almost a third to £39.2bn. So what’s the reasoning behind the drop in cash ISA investments? James de Sausmarez, director and head of investment trusts at Janus Henderson Investors, argues that because Brits are ‘a conservative bunch’, we tend to fall back onto cash savings as being the ‘safest’ way of to look after our money. But here’s where we are going wrong; cash savings often aren’t

If you’re on the hunt for a mortgage, a fixed rate one will ensure that your repayments stay the same, which might well come in handy. Here are some of the ‘best buys’ for two-year fixed rate mortgages on the market at the moment: Data provided by Moneyfacts.

While the horrific destruction that Hurricane Harvey has left in its wake might feel like a nightmare happening miles away, we might end up feeling the after-effects in the UK as well. The RAC has warned that petrol prices could soar across the country, due to disruption at numerous US oil refineries. The hurricane affected the production of a third of the country’s oil refineries (59% of which are on its Gulf Coast), as well as restricting US oil pipelines. In total, American oil refinery output dropped by a quarter, thus increasing US demand for petrol imports, and raising prices in the UK. Before the hurricane, petrol prices had been expected to remain

Investing in the stock market can be a laborious task. Reading the latest research, calling up your broker, watching the latest trends on financial TV channels, subscribing to the Financial Times or reading Investment Week or Investors Chronicle. And once you have done all that, it turns out that the same old companies being touted. How tedious. What if you as an investor could have access to more than just the companies listed on the FTSE 100, FTSE 250 or FTSE 350? There is of course AIM (Alternative Investment Market) launched in 1995, which lists a diverse range of smaller companies; but there is also NEX (formerly known as ICAP) –

Football is theatre, that much has always been obvious; but it’s also business. And though the rules of the game haven’t changed much on-field since 16th century Etonians codified the random kicking of an inflated pigskin, off the field the game has been in constant evolution. This summer has demonstrated, once again, that football is as much about ritual performances of capitalist peacocking as it is about twenty-two men going head to head. As the transfer window creaks closed today, it is worth reflecting on an historic summer. Neymar’s £200m transfer from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain more than doubled the world transfer record and created a domino of wildly inflated transfers – including

As happens every bank holiday, the roads were chock-a-block this weekend with people on the move – many of them heading off to weddings at opposite ends of the country. It can sometimes feel as though weddings cost a fortune; and that’s just going to them, not even having one of your own. Perhaps the reason it feels like they cost an awful lot, though, is because they do tend to be quite expensive for wedding guests. Of course, it’s lovely to be invited to a wedding, and perhaps even the engagements drinks and hen or stag do as well. But the price does tend to hit your wallet quite