Financial news

• Fears of spiralling debt as ‘buy now pay later’ credit quadruples in UK

  06-04-2024 18:00
  
  Campaigners and MPs demand regulation of the sector as struggling consumers increasingly use the deals to buy everyday essentialsMinisters are being urged to intervene over a surge in unregulated “buy now, pay later” credit after the amount UK consumers spend online using such deals rose up to £1.7bn a month.Debt advisers warn that many people are routinely resorting to deferred payments to buy household essentials. Any consumer who then misses payments risks seeing their case
  
  Read more

• Salary sacrifice: how British workers can take home more by getting paid less

  06-04-2024 12:00
  
  Once a way to save money on a bike to work, the scheme is now a ‘life hack’ to lessen a tax bill or to qualify for free childcareNo, it’s not a delayed April fool: putting in a request to have your wages cut may actually result in you being better-off at the end of the month.Salary sacrifice, sometimes known as salary exchange, is a great, if counterintuitive, “life hack”, according to Alice Guy, the head of pensions and savings at the investment platform interactiv
  
  Read more

• Thames Water funding crisis: the key players in the row over its future

  06-04-2024 11:00
  
  In latest twist to finger-pointing standoff, debt-stricken supplier’s parent company has defaulted on loanThe standoff between Thames Water, its shareholders, the government and the industry regulator is beginning to resemble the final scene of Reservoir Dogs. As Britain’s biggest water supplier creaks, the finger pointing over its financial woes is under way.Its executives and shareholders believe the regulator Ofwat has been too stringent, making the company “uninvestible&rdq
  
  Read more

• Enhanced right to ask for flexible working comes into force

  06-04-2024 10:10
  
  Employees in England, Scotland and Wales can now request flexible working from first day in new jobEmployees will have the legal right from Saturday to request flexible working from their first day in a new job.Previously, it applied only when someone had worked for their employer for 26 weeks or more. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Premier Inn guests who faced ‘spider army’ fail to claim good night refund

  06-04-2024 10:00
  
  Couple among those who say they have struggled to redeem on hotel chain’s ‘guarantee’ promising decent sleepPremier Inn’s adverts say that a good night’s sleep is “guaranteed”, but a couple have claim that any hope of that went out of the window when a “small army” of spiders began marching across the ceiling of their hotel room.Jonathan Rees, who filmed what he claimed was an “epic gathering” of arachnids, is one of a number of r
  
  Read more

• UK car insurance cost up by third but just 2% in France

  06-04-2024 09:00
  
  Disparity, along with lower increases for car cover in rest of Europe raises questions about motor insurance in BritainUK insurers have revealed the amount they paid out for motor claims went up by about 18% last year, even as British drivers faced premium increases of more than a third – far above the rises in the rest of Europe.The Association of British Insurers (ABI) put the average increase for car cover in the UK at 34%, but many drivers have seen rises far exceed that, even doubling
  
  Read more

• ‘The vet presented it as: if you care, you pay’: who really profits from poorly pets?

  06-04-2024 09:00
  
  £150 for a dog’s injection. £900 to monitor a rabbit overnight. Thousands for cat surgery. How did pet care become such big business?One crisp Sunday afternoon in late February, Louise Taylor noticed that one of her family’s two pet rabbits, Honey, couldn’t stand up properly. “We got an appointment at the emergency vet and they gave her painkillers and drugs,” says Taylor, a 46-year-old civil servant. “But she still couldn’t stand. The vet sa
  
  Read more

• British Savings Bonds: after the fanfare, interest rates hit a flat note

  06-04-2024 09:00
  
  NS&I’s new product offers up to 4.15% – but some experts dismiss it as just ‘a fancy bit of marketing’The UK government’s savings bank, NS&I, this week unveiled its new “British savings bonds”. The three-year, fixed-rate accounts pay up to 4.15% interest, but analysts say there are others out there offering better rates.That said, some people will like the fact that, as with all NS&I savings, “your money will be 100% secure, backed by H
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Six tips for budding centibillionaires (No 1: come from a very wealthy family) | Caroline Knowles

  06-04-2024 08:00
  
  The world’s richest people are mostly American, big in fintech, and started near the top. Where does that leave the rest of us?There is a tiny new elite at the frontier of money-making and they are known as the centibillionaires. These titans of the universe have personal assets of at least $100bn, and there are now 14 of them in the world – up from six last year. You will find them listed, compared and celebrated by the Bloomberg billionaires index and the Forbes world’s billi
  
  Read more

• UK families to benefit by up to £3,000 from changes to child benefit tax

  06-04-2024 07:00
  
  New tax year means threshold for benefit charge linked to higher earnings rises to £60,000Several hundred thousand families are to be better off, some by as much as £3,000, during the 2024-25 tax year after the government finally admitted that a child benefit measure brought in 11 years ago had not worked fairly.A change to child benefit is just one of a raft of changes coming in on 6 April, the start of the new tax year, including a cut in national insurance for employees to 8% from
  
  Read more

• Why has the ‘15-minute city’ taken off in Paris but become a controversial idea in the UK?

  06-04-2024 06:00
  
  Urbanist Carlos Moreno on how his concept is transforming French life and what is hindering change across the ChannelThe “15-minute city” has become a toxic phrase in the UK, so controversial that the city of Oxford has stopped using it and the transport minister has spread discredited conspiracy theories about the urban planning scheme.But while fake news spreads about officials enacting “climate lockdowns” to “imprison” people in their neighbourhoods, across
  
  Read more

• Rail strikes: public told to check before travelling on second day of Aslef action

  06-04-2024 06:00
  
  Most services on six major lines suspended on Saturday, as strikes coincide with union’s overtime banRail passengers across Great Britain have been told to check before they travel as a second day of strikes by train drivers will result in most services being suspended on six major lines.Industrial action by the drivers’ union Aslef will mean staff working for Chiltern Railways, Great Western Railway, Heathrow Express, LNER, Northern and TransPennine Express (TPE) staging a 24-hour s
  
  Read more

• Gender pay gap in Great Britain smallest since reporting first enforced

  06-04-2024 06:00
  
  Women still being paid 91p for every £1 a man earns, analysis shows, with gap stubbornly high in public sectorWomen are all over the big screen – but pay gap persists in the UK cultural sectorThe gender pay gap has reduced to its lowest level since reporting became mandatory for businesses in 2017. However, women are still being paid just 91p for every £1 a man earns, according to analysis of official government data.Almost four out of five companies and public bodies are still
  
  Read more

Follow @financialnwsUK on Twitter!