🔔 Press Review: Savings Roundup (week commencing 21 July 2018)

As we await the launch of Marcus, a retail banking arm of Goldman Sachs which is already successful in the US offering personal loans and savings, The Times looks at Goldman Sachs’ approach to recruitment for the new bank.

Away from Wall Street and looking to the high street, Goldman Sachs has recruited Des McDaid as managing director with responsibility for running Marcus in the UK.  McDaid originally started his career at NatWest, was former head of savings at TSB before moving to ING Direct as a senior executive.  We’re certainly waiting to see what difference this new brand and recognised backer will bring to the table in the UK, we’re expecting good things.

The Times also covered Trump’s row with China and the European Union over trade. Trump wrote on twitter “China, the European Union and others have been manipulating their currencies and interest rates lower, while the US is raising rates while the dollar gets stronger and stronger with each passing day – taking away our big competitive edge. As usual, not a level playing field. The US should be allowed to recapture what was lost due to illegal currency manipulation and BAD trade deals”.

Still with The Times, it looked at what to expect should rates change in anticipation of a base rate rise next month. Along with credit cards and mortgages they also looked at savings and what you might expect or do now. One commentator suggests not tying money up for longer than 6 months, however as our article (Don’t wait for a base rate rise) highlights, those people holding out on a rise in the base rate may be missing out on valuable interest in the meantime.

Excellent piece in the Financial Times Money section over the weekend looking at Challenger Banks driving up savings rates. Our own Tom Adams talks about the benefit of switching now and not leaving money in poor-paying accounts while waiting for the base rate rise.

As usual there was lots of speculation on the Bank of England base rate. Will they or wont they raise interest rates? Well I guess we won’t know until we know.