Money Blog

By Nic Cicutti
14 minutes ago
Section: Recession Watch

Today’s announcement that the Government is to inject £37bn of liquidity funding into Britain’s banks brings to an end – once and quite possibly for all – the era of free and easy lending. But with the Government set to become a major stakeholder in many of our high street banks, what kind of banking system are we set to experience in future? Perhaps it’s will be a fairer system that works better for consumers – if we learn some lessons from the past…

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By Nic Cicutti
3 days ago
Section: Recession Watch

The FTSE 100 share index of leading companies, which stood at 4,800 at the time Bolton went back into the market, has fallen to about 4,000 points as I write, down 20% in barely 10 days. Personal finance journalists like me, who have been in this game for many years, like to pretend that we have our fingers on the button. But sometimes it takes people with less formal knowledge but more insight to truly understand what is actually taking place…

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By Mark Adams
3 days ago
Section: Money Matters

With the days of 125% mortgages, sky-high credit card limits and herculean City bonuses now firmly behind us, UK consumers have already opted to baton down the financial hatches and find solace in simple, if unhappy, delights – and even our music tastes have been hit by the current malaise. Yet it doesn’t have to be that way. We’ve come up with a few songs that we think are guaranteed aural pick-me-ups that will help banish those credit crunch blues…

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By Nic Cicutti
4 days ago
Section: Recession Watch

Two further Icelandic banks have gone into administration today and savers are being told not to panic as they will get all their money back – but it’s not such good news for many councils and other bodies that deposited their own funds with Icelandic banks, to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds.

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By Nic Cicutti
5 days ago
Section: Recession Watch

Lesson to self: don’t be more pessimistic than you need to be. It’s been a mere two hours since the Bank of England’s emergency interest rate cut – and lenders are already rushing to cut their mortgage rates. But how did the sudden good news come about?

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