Credit Cards
Improve your credit score in five easy steps
Filed under: Credit Cards, Loans
If you are having trouble being approved for credit cards and other financial products, it's almost certainly because you have a poor credit score. Happily, however, there are plenty of easy ways to improve your chances of being accepted for credit cards, loans and mortgages. So we've come up with five top tips for upping your credit score.
The Co-operative Bank Clear credit card: Ethical and now cheaper
Filed under: Credit Cards
The Co-operative Bank - Britain's only mainstream ethical bank - is cutting the interest rate on its 'Clear' card. To qualify you must have an account with the Co-op.The Clear card doesn't have a headline grabbing zero interest deal, but holders do benefit from a lower than usual standard rate, which makes it good for borrowing, while its lack of hidden charges also mean it is more transparent than most other types of plastic.
Banking complaints reforms "too limited"
Filed under: Credit Cards, Mortgages, Saving
Many of Britain's biggest banks receive more than 1,500 complaints a day from angry customers, we now know thanks to new rules forcing them to publish this data.
However, pressure group Consumer Focus argues that the rules are "too limited" because they do not require the banks to break the figures down by product type, or to reveal how long they take to deal with complaints. Here, we examine whether the reforms go far enough to really help consumers and find out which banks get the most complaints.
Bumper Bank Holiday spending predicted as Britons flock abroad
Filed under: Credit Cards, Travel
It's no surprise that many people are looking to escape to sunnier shores this Bank Holiday weekend given the appalling weather we've had of late. According to Barclays, this particular Bank Holiday exodus will lead to the biggest surge in overseas debit card spending and cash withdrawals seen this summer.
Close to 2,000 customer complaints per day for Lloyds
Filed under: Credit Cards, Insurance
Lloyds TSB's customer service lines are jammed with close to 2,000 calls a day from angry customers wanting to complain, it emerged yesterday.
The bank - which is 43%-owned by the taxpayer after a multi-billion-pound bailout to save it from collapse - received more than 288,000 complaints in the first six months of this year alone.
How to pay off your holiday debt
Filed under: Credit Cards, Travel, Budgeting & Planning
It's well-known that cash strapped Brits would give up almost anything else but their summer holiday in the recession. As a result, according to insolvency trade body R3, 2 million of us are in debt after borrowing to afford that getaway. R3 also estimate that it will take us on average seven months to pay it back.Now the holiday season is drawing to a close, if you've started to feel the backlash as the credit card bills drop on your doormat, here are five things you can do to pay off that holiday debt quickly.
Shopaholics rack up debts of over £13 billion
Filed under: Credit Cards, Fashion, Budgeting & Planning
Millions of British women are in the grip of shopaholicism, racking up debts of £13 billion as they hunt down the latest must-have dress or shoes. The average shopaholic runs up debts of £3,353 - nearly three times the national average of £1,147. A new generation of 'metrosexual' men have also embraced the internet shopping revolution - and they have more expensive tastes than women.
Pay 1.9% on your loan or overdraft
Filed under: Credit Cards, Loans
Do you feel like you'll never be able to pay off your overdraft or loan in your lifetime? Whilst interest free deals allowing you to switch credit card balances from one piece of plastic to another are almost ten a penny, you hardly ever get the option to use a balance transfer to clear non-card debts and save on expensive loan or overdraft interest. Howwver, one new card lets you do it.
New credit cards spark reckless debts
Filed under: Credit Cards
It's a long time since anyone could have been accused of throwing money at us, but after a new study, there are concerns that the banks are tempting us in with recklessly designed credit cards, which are structured in such a way that they are far more likely to build up problem debts.So what are the claims, and do they hold any water?
Britain's best and worst banks revealed
Filed under: Credit Cards, Mortgages, Saving
Customer service just isn't one of those things we expect from our banks. Being endlessly flogged products we don't need, being told no-one can help because that's not how the system works, spending 45 minutes in the queue because someone is paying in coppers - those are the sorts of things we are familiar with.And a new survey has provided the final nail in the coffin of the myth that there's any service available in a high street bank. So who are the worst offenders?
