Finance and investment articles

The FTSE 100 Index has been trading over 5-1/2 year highs in recent days but our love affair with the housing market is far from over and even active private investors are warming up to property, according to the latest investor confidence index from the Association of Investment Companies (AIC).However, 44% of active investors continue […]

City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority( FSA), has fined loan broker, Loans.co.uk Limited (LCUK), £455,000 for failing to treat its customers fairly when selling Payment Protection Insurance (PPI).
Payment protection insurance is meant to provide you with an income to meet your outgoings if you are off work sick, have an accident or are made redundant. […]

Are you heading for pension poverty, the following article attempts to explain how much you will be living off when you reach ripe old age. 
THE STATE PENSION
The state pension is the bedrock of most people’s retirement provision. On average, the over-75s derive nearly 60% of their total income from the state pension.
The government has said that […]

The government has said it is considering a radical shake-up of the state second pension (S2P). It may scrap the current S2P system, where payouts are determined by annual earnings, replacing it with a simpler flat rate pension top-up.
The new flat-rate system would pay a fixed pension income based on the amount of time the […]

When it comes to making a decision on stopping an endowment and surrendering it, it is important to check your policy and make sure there is some value in doing this.
Early redemption can result in making less than you would have if it carried on for its full term, but if you need to […]

Equity release schemes have proved very popular in recent years. An expert explains what equity release involves and warns of the dangers of releasing cash from property.
Over the past decade returns on property have dwarfed those to be had from stock market investments and savings.
Some people have seen the value of their homes more […]

More than 4,000 City workers will take home £1m bonuses this year as the stock market has soared and takeover deals have surged, a study suggests. According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), the value of bonuses paid to London’s financial elite will rise 18% to £8.8bn.
High-profile takeovers of British firms have […]

Remortgaging is when a borrower who already has a home loan with one lender switches it to another one. The practice was relatively rare until 15 years ago, when lenders mostly offered only basic variants of variable rates. The assumption was that borrowers would simply stick with their existing mortgage for its full duration.Competitive market
But […]