Finance and investment articles

shares in one of the UK’s largest mortgage lenders, Northern Rock, have fallen by 20% after the Bank of England decided to give it emergency funding. But experts say it does not mean Northern Rock, which has £113bn in assets, is in danger of going bust.
The bank has struggled to raise money to finance […]

Homeowners who have enjoyed watching the value of their properties rise in recent months are being warned to brace themselves for a slowdown in the face of further interest rate hikes.
Centre - search every price paid, for every property sold, anywhere in England, Scotland and Wales for free. A growing band of market analysts now […]

The average price of a home in England and Wales is now close to £200,000, according to the latest figures from the Land Registry.

It found that, as the number of property sales jumped 25% year on year during the second quarter of 2006, the average price paid also increased by 7.71% - pushing typical values […]

Moneyextra’s latest quarterly review of financial services shows how you could put thousands of pounds a year back into your wallet by making the right choices.
The total annual savings available by replacing near-worst with near-best products across a range of financial services in the third quarter of 2006 was £3,976.02, up £167.24 on the same […]

First Direct, the online arm of HSBC, will start charging some customers a £10 monthly fee in what could be the first step towards the end of free banking for all.
The news has provoked an angry response from This is Money readers (which have been published in the Daily Mail), who are threatening to switch […]

We are considering buying a property in Southern Spain for £150,000. Our home in the UK is worth £250,000 with a £60,000 mortgage outstanding, we have a £10,000 deposit to invest and our combined income is £65,000.
Initially we though it would be best to re-mortgage our UK home but we have seen a number of […]

LONDON (ShareCast) - European markets are either flat or slightly lower Thursday as banks turn south with Wall Street closed for Thanksgiving keeping trade pretty thin.
UK banks took a hit after some negative broker comment, while Belgian financial services group KBC eased despite nearly doubling third quarter profit as earnings in its home market fell […]

Card fraud has affected more than seven million people in the UK, figures show.
Research from the European Security Transport Association (Esta) found that nearly 20 per cent of the adult population in Great Britain had been targeted as part of a credit or debit card scam.
It makes the UK the card fraud capital of Europe, […]