🔔 Press Review: Savings Roundup (week commencing 08 September 2018)

For savers, one of the obvious results, apart from the loss of trust in the banks, was the continued relentless reduction of the Bank of England base rate – which fell from a level of 5% in September 2008 to just 0.50% in the space of six months (March 2009).

Well things haven’t much improved for savers, but an article in the Sunday Express quoted PwC Partner and joint Lehman administrator Russell Downs as saying “I’m pleased to say that we are not operating in a world where financial collapses happen often, but we are better prepared and can mobilise quickly.” He went on to say “There will always be insolvencies, occasionally large ones, but I think we will never see anything as significant as Lehman again”

The Times remarks that it’s clear that some areas of the banking industry has changed, but it’s not so clear in others.

Whilst not about savings accounts, one topic that I read about week in and week out is Equity Release. This week, the front page of the money section of the Telegraph  highlights the dangers of choosing the wrong account, especially those opened in the 2000s with rates upwards of 7%. But the good news is that, as James Daley from Fairer Finance explains “many people are unaware that they could move and get a cheaper rate”. We have asked one of our carefully chosen partners, Responsible Equity Release  to write an article this week Your financial future – just how secure is equity release to help those interested, to navigate this popular market.

There was very little normal savings news last weekend, but The Mail on Sunday did a big exposé about the cash ISA market last week and with data supplied by us, reviewed how much, or should I say how little, many providers have passed onto savers over the last couple of base rate rises.

And a couple of articles looked at the challenger banks, who the Sunday Times suggests, have their roots in the above mentioned financial crisis, as it says the big banks simply had too little competition. So surely the raft of new banks is a good thing. However, Rosamund Urwin queries whether these new ‘minnows’ can ever grow big enough to really challenge the high street banks.

Rosamund Urwin also reviewed a soon to be launched new name that really could challenge the high street providers. That’s because it’s born out of one of the world’s most powerful investment banks – Goldman Sachs.

The retail bank, named Marcus, after the founder of the investment bank, Marcus Goldman – will be launching an online and call centre offering later this month – with an initial easy access account that could be paying a market leading 1.50% gross/AER on balances of up to £250,000 – this will hopefully be the start of a new boost to competition among best buy accounts.