Records from the Registry Trust show that the value of County Court Judgments (CCJs) against businesses in England and Wales increased five percent to nearly £ 900 million pounds last year. The number of judgments against businesses increased by nine percent on 2008 to a record 207,100, the fifth year-on-year increase in a row. A spokesman for the Registry Trust said the figures reflected the worsening economy.

U.S. food group Kraft Foods the new owner of confectioner Cadbury, has told 3,600 Cadbury staff that they face a three-year pay freeze unless they leave the company’s final salary pension scheme. Kraft has discovered a clause in Cadbury’s pension trust deed preventing it from changing members’ benefits in any way deemed "unfair or materially detrimental". Kraft is not forbidden from closing the scheme, but if they decided to do so would have to pay the full costs involved. Cadbury’s pension deficit was reported to be around £258 million.

U.K. owner of train tracks and stations Network Rail Ltd have won a court order preventing four days of strikes that would have disrupted journeys for millions of travelers returning from their Easter break. A High Court judge ruled against the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT). Network Rail’s lawyer argued that the RMT hadn’t polled its members accurately, with some workplaces returning more votes than the number of registered members. The union announced their intentions to hold another ballot. Network Rail, the state-owned operator of the U.K.’s rail infrastructure, carries about three and a half million passengers every day. Britain was facing its first national shutdown since 1994 after the RMT voted last month to strike in a dispute over job cuts and working terms after negotiations broke down. The strike was planned due to begin on the 6th of April.

Recent data released by one of the UK’s leading credit card payment acceptance processors shows payments made on credit and debit cards were up 7.1% in February compared to the same month last year. The increase follows on recent figures that show credit and debit card spending was up 3.6% in January 2010 in comparison the same month last year, while February 2010 showed an increase over the previous year, on a month-by-month basis, spending on debit and credit cards declined slightly by 2.5% from January, in line with expectations. The index is based on spending on all credit and debit cards across a wide range of retail sectors.

Marks & Spencer have posted another quarter of sales growth since the turn of the year. M&S’s statement showed a like-for-like sales increase that far outshone the previous quarter’s 0.8% rise with a 1.8% increase. Institutional and private investors have remained cautious on M&S due to economic uncertainty over the last few years, and while the previous quarter saw the first growth in two years, fear were that the Januarys snow may have hampered trading, although Marks and Spencer had managed to keep most of its stores open. M&S’s annual trading results due to be released in May are expected to show annual profits of £625 million, up from £604.4 million the previous year.

The children’s clothing and equipment retailer Mothercare grew total sales by 3.3 per cent in its fourth quarter, but did suffer a decline in UK like-for-like sales because of extreme weather conditions during January. Mothercare, which operates in 1,115 stores, announced in a recent trading update that the adverse weather in the 11 weeks to March 27 forced it to extend its winter sale, while managing to reverse some of the loss of turnover, through implement tight cost controls. Total UK sales in the quarter fell 0.9 per cent and like-for-like sales – sales in stores trading for at least a year, as well as sales in its online divisions – were down 1.6 per cent, weaker than analyst had anticipated.

The UK’s largest mobile phone companies may be forced to cut the price of their calls following new proposals unveiled by Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator. The watchdog is proposing deep cuts in termination rates on the 02, Orange/T-Mobile, Vodafone and 3UK networks as it works to set the rules on mobile termination rates. By doing so, Ofcom stepped back from an initial proposal last year that could have seen consumers face higher monthly bills if telecoms companies had to cut or scrap charges for connecting calls to their networks. Mobile termination rates are the fees are paid by fixed-line and mobile operators when their customers make calls to people on other networks. The reform is a highly contentious issue among the bigger mobile operators, mainly because they earn more than £2 billion a year from the fees. Ofcom have set a price ceiling on the wholesale fees that mobile operators can levy on each other, as well as fixed-line phone companies led by BT Group

Recent data shows a rise to 57.2 in the UK’s Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index in March. This positive figure confirms that the sector is continuing to expand and is an improvement on previous forecasts, which had called for a more modest increase February’s reading of 56.6, with expectations that it would be around the 56.8 mark. This improvement in the UK manufacturing sector follows both Germany and the Eurozone’s stronger reading in their March readings. All three economies posted their best numbers since the beginning of the recession. Expansion in the sector comes after a rebound in both consumer demand and export sales.

On the money markets, before the Easter break set in, the pound was beginning to show signs of benefitting from this positive data, despite hitting resistance levels against both the Euro and the US dollar, while the continuing uncertainty over European support for its weakest link pushed the euro as low as $1.3502 on Friday, its weakest level in over two weeks.

The pound fell back slightly, while remaining above the $1.50 mark at $1.5187, whilst and gaining against the Euro to close on 1.1269.

The FTSE was closed for the holiday weekend.

The US government did announce on Friday that the recovering economy had created 162,000 jobs in March last month, whilst the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.7 per cent. Temporary hiring by the US government for the public sector only accounted for some 48,000 new jobs in March, meaning the private sector has begun to create new job openings.

China has offered to accelerate free trade agreement talks with India in a bid to balance a burgeoning trade relationship between two of Asia’s largest economies that is heavily skewed in Beijing’s favour. Chinese officials expect trade between the two to rise to $60 billion, (£39.5 billion) in 2010, as the world’s two fast-growing large economies surge forward in their recovery from the global financial crisis. Indian officials described the trade deficit that last year was about $16 billion in Beijing’s favour as “politically unsustainable”, and continue to identify it as a point of friction in a relationship key to Asia’s peace and stability.

Commodities prices ended the week at the highest level since late 2008, with oil hitting $85 a barrel, bolstered by signs of strong manufacturing growth particularly in China and India

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Tags: 02, 3UK, Bank, Banking, British Economy, British Pound, Cadbury, County Court Judgments, Credit Crunch, Currency, Debt, Economics, Economy, Employment, Financial News, FTSE, Kraft Foods, Maritime and Transport Workers, Marks & Spencer, Money, Mothercare, National Union of Rail, Network Rail Ltd, Ofcom, Orange, Recession, Registry Trust, Retail, T-Mobile, UK Banks, UK business, UK Economy, UK government, UK Recession, Vodafone

Alistair Darling increased the levels of his undoubted popularity with the UK public by announcing some interesting cuts and about turns in his pre-budget cuts. The first was that VAT cut to 15% as recently as March in the Budget, is to be reversed as of 1 January 2010. Income tax bands are to be tampered with, meaning that people who earn £43,000 or more will feel the pain that little bit earlier. On the plus side national insurance bands are to be reduced downwards by a further 0.5% from April 2011, meaning that those earning less than £20,000 will no longer need to pay any contributions. State pensions and child benefits are also set to rise in April of next year.

Meanwhile it has been reported that U.K. consumer confidence stayed close to the highest level in the past eighteen months in November as shoppers have become more hopeful for the economy’s prospects in the coming year. 2010. The proportion of shoppers expecting the economy to worsen in the next six months fell to its lowest level since the survey began in 2004.

As expected, the Bank of England has held UK interest rates at the record low of 0.5%, whilst announcing that there are to be no changes to its programme of pumping newly-created money into the economy – so-called quantitative easing (QE). The Bank cut interest rates to 0.5% in March of this year in an attempt to boost the recession-hit economy while in November; they announced that another £25 billion would be injected into it, taking the total planned under QE to £200 billion. The bank is expected to wait until the current QE programme runs out in January before considering whether it should be expanded. As Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling announced earlier this week that he would rather suffer criticism for removing economic support too late than too early, Bank of England policy makers are waiting for the final quarter results to see if Britain has finally escaped the recession, and if the £200 billion spent to aid growth has finally brought some results..

Meanwhile in his pre-budget cuts speech, Darling appeared to back away from the bank bonuses issue, by announcing that there will be no windfall tax on banks, but they will pay a one-off levy of 50% on any bonus above £25,000

The number of loans approved for house purchase rose to 55,300 in October, up 9 percent from September and 43 percent higher on a year ago, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said on Thursday. According to an industry body, the amount of buyers has risen from its lowest point in January 2009 when only 23,000 loans were advanced. The number of loans for remortgaging remained weak, however, unchanged from September’s level of 33,000, one of the lowest levels since the series began in 2002.

Nokia have announced that they are to close their flagship store on London’s Regent Street, as a result of slow sales and poor customer traffic. The remainder of the company’s UK stores are to remain open. Nokia were reported to have spent £4 million creating the Regent Street store that was launched in February 2008, and will close in the first quarter of 2010, Seven other of Nokia’s UK stores, including its Heathrow Terminal 5 outpost, are set to receive a revamp.

Shares in Barclays Plc fell 3.2 percent, to 287.5 pence after allegations that they were withholding a “secret” $5 billion windfall profit from its purchase of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s North American brokerage, despite the fact that the gain was publicly disclosed before the sale closed 15 months ago.

Sterling continued to lose ground against the dollar on Thursday whilst rising slightly against the Euro, as implications of the UK government’s pre-Budget report weighed on the currency,

• Pound/US dollar 1.6278
• Pound/Euro 1.1058

After the UK finance minister forecast that the UK economy will shrink by 4.75 percent this year, rather than the earlier prediction of a 3.25 percent to 3.75 percent decline, the FTSE 100 fell by 0.37 percent to 5,203.89, while the FTSE 250 dropped by 1.24 percent to 8,919.49.

The US trade deficit unexpectedly narrowed in October as exports rose to their highest level in almost a year, official figures have shown.

The deficit fell to £20.2 billion ($32.9 billion), 7.6% lower than September’s downwardly revised $35.7 billion figure.

Helped by the weaker value of the dollar, US exports increased by 2.6% to $136.8 billion, led by civilian aircraft, cars and computer chips.

Imports rose 0.4% to $169.8 billion. Analysts had predicted the deficit to expand to $36.8 billion.

The value of US exports was the highest since November 2008, the figures from the Commerce Department showed.

The trade deficit is now expected to widen again in 2010 as the US economy continues to recover and consumers buy more imported goods.

On close of trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 120 points to 10,405.83 and the NASDAQ also rose 21 points to close on 2,190.86.

According to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia’s unemployment rate fell in November to 5.7% from 5.8% in November, The figures came as a surprise to many analysts who had expected an increase to 5.9%. Australia is one of the few developed economies not to have fallen into recession like its counterparts throughout the world. The Australian economy has benefited from an increase in commodity prices, while exports have received a boost due to demand from China for its iron ore and other raw materials.

Official figures have revealed that orders for Japanese machinery orders fell by 4.5% in October compared with the previous month, with analysts expecting a fall of just 4.3%. The figures come just a day after the Cabinet Office revealed that the Japanese economy grew at a far slower rate in the third quarter than previous estimates showed.

Meanwhile, the price of crude oil dropped on new data from the US Energy Information Administration showing that gasoline stockpiles grew last week while demand declined. The price of oil dipped below $70 a barrel, falling to a two-month low, amid continuing concerns over demand.

US crude for January delivery fell 84 cents to $69.81 a barrel, before settling at $70.13 as it lost ground for the seventh consecutive day.

London Brent crude fell 81 cents to $71.58 a barrel.

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Tags: Alistair Darling, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Bank, Bank of England, Banking, Barclays, Barclays Plc, British Economy, British Pound, Cabinet Office, Council of Mortgage Lenders, Credit, Credit Crunch, Currency, Debt, Dow Jones, Economics, Economy, Finance, Financial News, FTSE, Global Credit Crisis, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, Money, Money Markets, Mortgages, NASDAQ, Nokia, pre-budget cuts, Recession, Retail, Stock Markets, Stocks and shares, UK Banks, UK Economy, UK government, UK Recession, VAT

Millions of members of the UK community of retirees are looking at the dim prospect of receiving a pension hike of less than ten pounds a month when the new rates kick-in in April 2010 The reason for the minimal increase is that UK inflation on which pension rises are calculated. Is considerably less than the minimum of 2.5%. government pledge to annually increase the state pension.

Instead, recently released figures from the Office for National Statistics show that UK retail prices index registered actually recorded a fall of 1.4% for the year ending September 2008. This means that both state and public sector pensions, both of which are calculated according to September inflation, will reach only the minimum figure of 2.5%.

A spokesman for the charity, Age Concern rushed to state that at £97.65 a week the basic state pension was seriously inadequate to guarantee the UK elderly a reasonable standard of living. Thy went on to insist that the current pension system is in need of urgent reform that will ensure older people can live off their pensions without having to apply for benefit top ups.

A monthly study has shown that living costs for pensioners are rising at a rate much higher than those for younger people, with the elderly spend a disproportionate amount on energy bills and food.

This daunting piece of news for UK retirees is only the latest in a line of unexpected pitfalls they will have to bear. Recent studies have shown that not only are many Britons are dramatically reshaping their retirement plans to match a new reality. A reality that depicts those who were due to retire in the near future, are putting off their retirement for as long as possible as the reality hits home that those who are retiring today will need to live off less than what represents half of the UK national average wage.

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Tags: Age Concern, British Economy, British Pound, Credit Crunch, Debt, Economy, Financial News, Government, Inflation, Interest Rates, Money, Money Management, Office for National Statistics, pensioners, Recession, Retail, retirees, Savings, state pensions, UK Economy, UK elderly, UK government, UK inflation

In an increasing trend that takes economics back to the eighteenth century, it appears that manufactures of goods that can be described as innovative or even slightly out of the mould are finding it more difficult to find bank financing to support research and development than companies whose product ranges are more conservative.

This disturbing piece of news comes as a result of a survey published by EEF, the UK manufacturers’ organisation. Based on a survey taken from more than 200 British companies, the EEF discovered that a lack of understanding in the financial sector of why certain manufacturing sectors needed to invest considerable sums of money in research and development, that in turn fostered innovation in product design as well as production methods.

The report divulges that around 40% of UK companies find it difficult, if not impossible, to be awarded finance, with the situation worsening over the last twelve months. The reasons given for this new slant in bank thinking, according to the EEF, are that many of the innovations that have been carried out during the financial downturn could be deemed as intangible. That means that the companies involved did not invest in tangible assets such as machinery and raw materials, but instead invested capital in improving their existing framework in such areas as systems management, sales and marketing and improved logistics. These are areas that in the eyes of banker should be financed by the company internally. The only way that the banks were interested in lending money to improve stability within a company or to finance research and development were if the owners or directors were prepared to personally guarantee any loans.

The EEF report wound up by recommending that the UK government’s mechanisms for supporting innovation be concentrated into a single entity, that would combine such schemes as regional venture capital funding, enterprise capital funds, innovation investment funds and research and development grants with considerably less dependence on commercial banks.

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Tags: Bank, Banking, British Economy, Credit Crunch, Debt, Economics, Economy, EEF, Financial News, Innovation, Money, Recession, UK Banks, UK companies, UK Economy, UK government, UK manufacturers’ organisation, UK Recession

In times gone by, the self righteous members of the community were often heard to say "neither a lender nor a borrower be." Not a bad piece of advice it would transpire and one that should have been heeded more carefully a few years ago. However it must have been hard to take when handed out by your maiden Aunt who refused to lend you sixpence for your bus fare, which you had mistakenly spent on liquorice allsorts.

The last year has seen an all time low for both savers as well as those whose life style forces them to borrow just to survive. For savers it has been especially tough. According to statistics gathered by the Bank of England’s the average interest rate for savers has plunged from 4.49% to 0.41% in the last twelve months, as the BOE has cut interest rates to the bone to prop up the banks.

Interest rates for the average instant access account has plunged from 1.85% before tax (2.31% after tax) to 0.14% (0.17%), while the average price of fixed rate bonds has fallen from 4.53% (5.66%) to 2.42% (3.03%).

However the true picture for many savers is a lot less colourful than that, as these rates are only on offer frosh fresh deposits, while much of the money held in UK banks are on older long terms plans, where interest rates have plunged as low as 0.08% (0.1 %) interest, returning just 80 pence interest a year for every £1,000 saved.

For borrowers the picture is just as gloomy. Overdrafts are being cut and default interest rates being applied with a heavy hand. Those whose debt package is linked to their credit card have fared no better. Reports of rates hiking reduced borrowing limits or even having their credit cut off completely abound. And balance transfer deals and reward schemes are rapidly becoming part of banking history.

It may be a bitter pill for many to swallow, but Auntie might have been right!

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Tags: Bank of England, Banking, BOE, British Economy, British Pound, Credit, Credit Crunch, Current Account, Debt, Economy, Financial News, Interest Rates, Money, Money Management, Overdraft, Recession, UK Banks, UK Economy, UK Recession

A recent report from the Bank of England has revealed that the total amount of personal debt in the UK is lower than it has been for more than 16 years, and probably even more, as that was when records first began.

Factors such as rising unemployment and the economic downturn have caused UK consumers to become increasingly reluctant to increase their levels of personal debt, indicated by borrowing falling by £600 million in July, taking the total personal debt in the UK to a little below £1.5 trillion. Which is still a considerable sum of money.

At the same time, current low interest rates means that the amount of equity outstanding on mortgages is decreasing by £400 million a month at current levels, meaning that many home-owners are managing to repay more of their outstanding mortgage, reducing their deficit.

The manufacturing sector, also doing their best to draw in their horns, complain of increasing price rises from their banks, despite the abundance of Government packages to increase liquidity in the banking system and interest rates being at an all time low. According to the Engineering Employers Federation (EEF), credit terms remain "very tight" for manufacturers. A fact that they claim could hold back an early recovery from the recession, and certainly not in line with the US, Japan and even France and Germany.

Britain retail sectors, living in hope of a good Christmas season, are going to need it, if recent forecasts are correct. The forecast, from a leading firm of accountants and business advisers, forecast that the worst effects of the recession for the retail sector will not be felt until next year. Fears that rising unemployment will hit the high street hard and as many as 5,000 companies will be forced to close their doors throughout the UK.

Some good news for the UK economy is the announcement that British Petroleum (BP) has discovered a massive oil field while drilling of the Gulf of Mexico.

BP, currently the largest producer of oil and gas in that area, have till now produced more than 400,000 barrels of oil a day, with their latest discovery expected to increase that figure considerably. The company had to dig deep, not just in their pockets, but also through the Earth’s core to get to the fast reservoir of crude, reaching a depth of 35,055 feet making it one of the deepest wells drilled in the World.

On the news, BP shares jumped 3.8% to 538 pence, making it star of the show on the FTSE 100 yesterday.

It wasn’t really a major achievement as equities continued to be under pressure on the FTSE yesterday, however late trading did push it back to a reasonable condition. The k index ended just 2 points lower at 4,817.55, following losses of 89 points during the previous session.

Meanwhile the FTSE 250 continued to slide, yesterday dropping a further 99.75 points to close on 8,519.93

Sterling made a minor recovery against the major currencies on Wednesday’s trading.

• Pound/US dollar 1.6272
• Pound/Euro 1.1409
• Pound/Japanese Yen 149.9756
• Pound/Swiss Franc 1.7249

In the US, once again Federal Reserve policy-makers are showing increased confidence that the downturn in the US economy is due to officially come to an end. At a recent meeting, chaired by recently re-appointed Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke a more upbeat tone emanated, hinged with an uncertainty about how quickly the economy would grow in 2010. Fears remain that unemployment, which is set to move above 10% this year, may impact on consumer behaviour.

On Wall Street, US stocks were up and down on Wednesday affected by the release of data on job losses, with the release of the Challenger jobs report, which showed that the pace of US job losses has slowed, later offset by data released by the

This was quickly counterbalanced by payroll giant Automatic Data Processing (ADP) stating that employers in the private sector had cut by more than 50,000 the jobs expected in July than the expected 250,000.

On Wall Street, the markets returned to relative stability, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping by 29.93 points to close on 9280.6 while the NASDAQ Composite index stabilised, falling a mere 1.82 points to close on 1967.07

European Union finance ministers have taken up the gauntlet and will press for clearly defined restrictions on bonus pay for bankers in the future. The issue will be at the focus of talks to be held with their US and other G20 counterparts later this month.

Anders Borg, finance minister of Sweden, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, speaking on Wednesday after a meeting of the EU’s 27 finance ministers designed to set out common positions on bankers’ pay as well as the other hot potato of financial market regulation. Other issues on the table will be how to draw back from the fiscal, monetary and other emergency measures adopted this year to prevent a deep global recession, with financial stability returning.

Gold prices surged to a near three-month high on Wednesday as investors turned to the precious metal after a weak opening in equity markets in New York.

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Tags: Automatic Data Processing, Bank of England, Banking, Ben Bernanke, BP, British Economy, British Petroleum, British Pound, Credit Crunch, Currency, Debt, Dow Jones, Economy, Employment, Engineering Employers Federation, Federal Reserve, Financial News, FTSE, Interest Rates, Money, Money Markets, Mortgage, Mortgages, NASDAQ, personal debt, Recession, Stock Markets, Stocks and shares, UK consumers, UK Economy, UK government, UK Recession, Unemployment, US economy, Wall Street

Recent suggestions are that UK banks and building societies will come under increasing pressure to reduce their fixed mortgage rates after government bond markets began to increase rapidly. Analysts in the bond market have recommended that, as a result of the rise in the price of government bonds which is causing an attendant and converse relationship to yields, lower mortgage rates should automatically follow.

The feeling running high among UK mortgage brokers is that the banks and building societies are simply holding tight from reducing interest rates for as long as possible, in order to earn some extra profit on the backs of the hard-pressed British home owners who are carrying equity on their property. These large financial bodies are manipulating swap rates, used to set fixed-rate mortgages, and which currently account for about half of the mortgages held in the UK.

Swap rates define the cost incurred when a bank or building society alters or "swaps" from a floating interest rate to a fixed rate. Two years of fixed swap rates fell recently by 1.95 percent to a low of 0.785 percent, taking a plunge of nearly half a percentage point since the beginning of August – the lowest level since records began in 1985 – while five-year gilt yields fell to 2.43 percent. As government bond yields have fallen, it would follow that the swap rates should also have dropped, in line with them. This event is taking too long to happen, mortgage analysts claim, while adding that the banks have also shown a determined reluctance to pass over reduced borrowing costs to potential customers, as long as demand for mortgages outstrips supply.

Five-year swap rates also fell to 3.33 per cent, close to a drop of 0.5 percent. These falls were driven by forecasts that official interest rates would remain at historic lows of 0.5 per cent and speculation that the Bank of England might even introduce negative interest rates on commercial bank deposits.

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Tags: Bank of England, British Economy, British Pound, building societies, Credit, Debt, Economy, Financial News, government bonds, home owners, Interest Rates, Loans, Money, Money Management, mortgage brokers, mortgage rates, Mortgages, Swap rates, UK Banks, UK Economy, UK government

The signs are definitely there: Germany and France have already done it, even Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand. The US is still in it, yet in name only. And the UK will be following not long after. To where?

If you haven’t already guessed, the answer is out of recession.

So what happens in post-recession Britain? Have we learned our lessons? Will the man in the street work longer hours, save up to buy that new 42" plasma, that Mediterranean holiday or to upgrade the family car? Or will he fall back into credit euphoria? Will UK businesses cut costs to build up their cash reserves or will they revert to being cash loan and overdraft junkies like before?

And the most leading question of them all is, will the banks be responsible and, if they succeed in becoming autonomous, will they once again become the profit-hungry, bonus-driven monsters that played a significant part in almost bringing the UK economy to total meltdown?

If there is a precedent to prevent the disasters of the first decade of the 21st century ever happening again then it is written in America’s 1933 Glass-Steagall Act. The act was drawn up following the Wall Street Crash that sparked one of the greatest depressions the world has ever known. One of the act’s principle provisions was to disallow risky investment banking and to channel bank funds and lending into the safer realms of retail banking, which the sort the UK public needs to finance the model life style that they deserve: everyday needs.

UK financial analysts hasten to point out that if such a system had been in place from around 2001 onwards, when the profit chasing was at full steam, the checks and balances would have prevented the UK banks from going as far over the top as they did. They would have been unable to hold the UK government to ransom and force the public to become reluctant shareholders in their business. Instead, the British public could have stood back and watched some of the more rickety financial institutions go to the wall, and without too many tears being shed in the process.

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Tags: Banking, British Economy, British Pound, Credit, Debt, Economy, Financial News, Glass-Steagall Act, Money Management, negative equity, Overdraft, post-recession Britain, Recession, UK Banks, UK businesses, UK Economy, UK government, Wall Street Crash

Although your bank manager will tell you that he or she is your friend, and that they have your best interest at heart when they cut your overdraft or credit card levels, don’t believe them. The truth is that banks thrive on people who are in financial trouble and know exactly how to play on your weakened situations to continue to feed their insatiable drive for profit.

More so, that when you go to them on your knees asking for just a little more leeway, they will already have made sure that you will find it difficult if not impossible to find alternative finance elsewhere, and will take full advantage by providing you with additional finance at horrendously high interest rates.

The UK public must surely have learned one expensive and painful lesson from the current financial crisis and that is to keep the credit under control, and to try to do so by achieving and maintaining a credit rating that is as pure and white as the first snows of winter.

And believe it or not, despite prodigious efforts by the FSA to prevent this from happening, lenders, be they banks, building societies or credit card companies, are pooling their efforts to make sure that people who have fallen into debt in the past will find it very difficult to improve their credit rating.

There is, and always has been, a great anomaly about how finance providers look upon a potential client. If someone has money, why should they need to borrow it? Yet in many cases it is sensible to borrow money, particularly for a mortgage, or to buy a new car or even some major household appliance. Banks carry out tens of thousands of transactions every month, although secured loans are much less attractive to them than unsecured loans, where they can make more than twice the interest.

The sad truth of the matter is that if people are in severe financial trouble the last place they should set foot in is a bank, building society or credit card company, except to ask for an extended agreement on the same terms. Under no circumstances should they agree to accept a new refinancing agreement which will certainly be on prohibitive terms.

Only time will cure most people’s problems, and eventually better times will come. In the meantime it is everyone’s interest to keep the head down, draw in the belt even tighter, and repair each credit status. Learning to be less credit dependent will be a challenge for all of us, but it will be justified by never having to bend your knees to your bank manager again.

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It’s a well known fact, that for the good or the bad, what- ever the new trend that emanates from the United States eventually makes it to our shores. And the next best thing making its way to us low cost, privately owned rental housing. And it may be just what the British home seeker is looking for. Despite the fact that property prices have dropped by around 15% in the last two years, for many couples the hope of ever owning a property of their own is looking increasingly remote. Also many of the baby boomers who are interested in down- sizing are afraid to do so because they cannot guarantee themselves that they will find a suitable property to replace the one that they may be selling.

In the US these have become common problems, and are being dealt with through the launch of rental homes projects that are of a high standard , can be produced relatively cheaply through utilizing the most modern methods of mass production.

The projects are rising throughout the US as a result of the Obama government’s call for greater institutional investment in the residential market.

One of the first bodies to rise to the call were the Aviva insurance group, who are about to launch an investment fund , funded by up to £1 billion to construct build to rent residential property. The property management will be handled in partnership with CB Richard Ellis, a well known international property consultancy firm who are currently very active in similar projects in the UK as well as the US.

Already one venture in the UK is under scrutiny by the partners. The plan is to build 100 units in residential blocks, which will be situated in a yet to be named town in the south-east England. All that is known is the units will be situated near the large transport centers in an area where property prices are particularly high.

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Tags: Aviva insurance, Credit Crunch, Debt, Economics, Financial News, Money, Mortgage, Mortgages, Obama, Property Prices, rental housing, Richard Ellis