Article by Christina
April 2024 news from your local Independent Financial Adviser
- The Yorkshire Building Society have launched a 99% First Time Buyer mortgage with a £5,000 deposit. It will be interesting to see how many people can meet the affordability criteria, but the first-time buyers do need a boost in the mortgage market.
- According to research by LV over 50% of adults said that they would rather keep their savings in cash (despite low interest rates) for fear of losing money through investments. Only 40% were prepared to risk their capital.
- 3 million pensioners will have to pay income tax by 2028 if the tax thresholds don’t change. That’s according to research by the Liberal Democrats. Another 1.6 million more than today.
- Research by The people’s Partnership found that cash incentives made 20% more people switch their pensions to a new provider. Even a small cash incentive of £100 made people switch despite charges being up to £1000 higher over 5 years. There are calls to ban this type of incentive for pension switching.
- Ex St Jame’s Place (SJP) Chief Executive has had his payout bonus cut by £450,000 as a result of SJP having to pay compensation for not completing customer annual reviews. How refreshing. Wouldn’t it be good if public sector chiefs had their salaries and bonusses cut for failing to deliver on targets.
- Action Fraud has reported that over £600 million has been lost to different types of investment fraud over the past 12 months. There have been over 30,000 cases reported to the Police with an average loss of £25,000 per case. Please be vigilant when dealing with investments. Make sure you use a trusted local Independent Financial Adviser.
- Nearly half of all adults have stopped or cut down on their savings and investments as a result of the so called “cost of living crisis”, which in itself is just one of many unintended consequences of lockdown which will plague the economy for years to come.
- On the bright side only 7.5 million people said they were struggling to pay their bills, down from 11 million the year before.
- Vouched For have announced that they will now be including all 20,000 regulated financial services businesses on their online directory. Not just those (like us) who use the platform for client reviews. The hope is that the Vouched For website can be used by financial services providers to sign post access to a local Independent Financial Adviser to people needing advice across the UK. Sounds like a great step forward to us.
- Over 800 Independent Financial Advisers came off the FCA register in March, along with over 300 firms. Now there are only 30,000 registered financial advisers across the UK.
- Over £3.5 billion has been withdrawn from ISAs in the last 12 months.
- The economy grew by 0.1% in February down on the 0.2% growth in January but avoiding a recession.
- Inflation fell again in March and is now down to 3.2%. A relief from last year’s double digit rises.
- In a barely believable turn of events Neil Woodford whose investment fund collapsed back in 2019 owing investors over £300 million, has just launched a new website publicising his views on investment management! Just a week after the FCA published a warning note against him.
- The FTSE 100 index hit a new all-time high of 8,067 on the 23rd of April and may go higher still. This tops the previous high point in February 2023.
- Over 800,000 complaints were made about insurance products in the six months to December 2023.
- Financial fraud now accounts for nearly 40% of all crime in the UK. This includes pension fraud, identity theft, bank account scams, push payment fraud and crypto investment fraud.
- St James Place continue to experience big problems. The amount of new investment deposits was down by over 60% in first three months of 2024, compared to the same period last year.
- Labour have committed to keeping the pensions triple lock in place for at least the next 5 years. Great news for those relying on the State Pension to support their retirement income.
