Moneyblog

This week we gathered in the elegant dining room of our sponsor, the private bank Julius Baer, to meet the regional finalists from London and the South for The Spectator’s Economic Disruptor of the Year Award. Our host was David Durlacher, chief executive of Julius Baer International, and with him were Tracey Reddings, the bank’s head of front office, and half a dozen colleagues. Our guests represented seven of the ten regional finalists. Each was asked to talk informally, for five minutes, about their business’s potential for disruption and growth. Here’s some of what we learned. Carwow is an online platform that ‘takes the hassle out of new-car buying’ from

Notice accounts tend to offer better rates of interest, but you do have to notify your bank or building society before you take out your money. So, if you don’t need immediate access to your funds, they can be a good option for savers. Here are the best ones on the market at the moment, from data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.

In the ‘bad old days’ – namely before the late 20th century – it was traditionally the case that the less ethical and the less green a business or sector, the better. There was, and still is, a whole cacophony of ‘sin stocks, from tobacco to oil and gas to defence and junk food. The reason for an enthusiasm for all things sinful was, and probably still is, because such businesses tended to have the most secure profits profile. After all, people will always smoke, go to war and binge eat. However, from a moral standpoint investors would be scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of a clear

The National Centre for Social Research’s held an ‘The Class Ceiling’ yesterday where attendees included Sky’s Lewis Goodall. He tweeted afterwards that thanks to Sam Friedman, an LSE researcher, there is now ‘solid evidence for the class pay gap: Those from a working class background are paid £7,000 less for doing the same job as someone from a middle class home.’ Quite a claim, but how solid is the evidence? Last year, Friedman and others published a report (pdf) for the Social Mobility Commission saying that those from a working-class backgrounds earn on average £6,800 less than colleagues from professional and managerial backgrounds. This is, presumably, where the £7,000 figure

It’s that time of year again – the air is turning crisp and pencils are being sharpened. Back to school. Many will be starting off a new chapter at university. While juggling the demands of course work and lectures with parties, Fortnite, and beer, who has time to think about finances? But if there is something worse than getting your card declined at the late night take-away, it’s having to ring up mum or dad asking for a loan. So here are some ways to approach the new academic year to set yourself up for a semester of financial wellbeing. Don’t be an ostrich. It can be tempting to live

ISAs have fallen from grace in recent years, and are now being ignored by many savers. ‘One of the biggest influences on the ISA market has been the disrupting force of the PSA since its inception in 2016. Savers have also faced the blight of Government lending initiatives, which decimated the savings market and forced interest rates to plummet’, comments Rachel Springall, of Moneyfacts.co.uk. However, there are still some good rates to be had if you search hard enough. Here are some of the best three-year fixed-rate ISAs on the market at the moment.

Origins of Wonga The payday lender Wonga has gone into administration. How did ‘wonga’ come to be used as slang for money? — The term is believed to have derived from the Romany word ‘wangar’ which, although used as a term for money, in fact means ‘coal’. This in turn has Indo-Iranian origins. — In English, too, ‘coal’ or ‘cole’ were used as slang for ‘money’ in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the possession of coal really did equate to wealth.

Buy-to-let property is still a popular investment choice for those who have the money to put down the deposit. Here are the best 5-year fixed rate mortgages available at the moment, according to data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.

The idea of working 9-5 until you receive a gold watch at age 60 is dying out fast. Millennials seem to have the biggest millstone around their neck: a survey of under-35s by Prudential found that over a third of millennials believe that, despite saving as much as they can, they are never going to save enough for a comfortable retirement. The cost of living longer in retirement is pushing the average retirement age higher, and millennials’ struggle to fill their pension pot will lead to them postponing retirement even longer. Changing generational trends could be affecting productivity in business too. Companies who look closely at their baby-boomer employees’ retirement plans are

The wonder of Wonga is that it lasted so long. The arch-villain of the payday loan sector, which grew like a mutant fungus out of the wreckage of the financial crisis, once clocked up a record Representative Annual Percentage Rate (APR) on its loans to gullible and desperate cash-seekers of 5,853 per cent, and was ordered in 2014 to write off the debts of 330,000 delinquent borrowers who could never have passed proper ‘affordability’ checks. The imposition by the Financial Conduct Authority of a cap of 0.8 per cent per day on lending rates, plus limits on default charges, knocked out many smaller competitors, but Wonga (with a 30 per

After an eerily quiet year, payday loans are back in the headlines. The speedy demise of Wonga has sent shockwaves through the industry, and rumours of which firms may be next are spreading like wildfire. So what brought the great bogeyman of the payday loans industry, which at one point boasted a fifty per cent market share, to its knees? Was it the years of media scrutiny, tougher regulation, or the rise of Credit Unions? It’s rather ironic that the once mighty Wonga has been brought down by the ambulance chasers of the finance world, claims management firms. While other lenders may not want to admit it, they’ve all seen

As to public subsidy for broadband, the conclusion to be drawn from the DCMS report, though it may not please some readers, is that it should be heavily tilted towards business premises. The report comes up with a benefit-to-cost ratio per pound of subsidy of £1.18 for residential superfast connections but £12.28 for non-residential. The ‘wellbeing’ effects of more movie choices from the sofa and everything else home broadband brings are worth having and we now see them as an entitlement. But the effects on productivity, job creation, small-business viability and export potential are vital for future prosperity — and the competitive disadvantage of having poorer broadband than our trading