Cash point
The ISA market is slowly warming up, with a new 1.4% one-year fixed rate from Coventry Building Society among the deals on offer.
While ISA rates are still pretty pathetic, you can improve on the 0.5% or less that millions of savers put up with on older accounts.
Coventry’s new offering isn’t bad, but it may not be so good you would lock cash away for a year.
You can get 1.25% on Easy Access ISAs from Paragon Bank (0800 052 2222) and Shawbrook Bank (0345 266 6611).
On a £5,000 balance you would only get £7.50 more over a year with Coventry.
Andrew Hagger of personal finance site Moneycomms.co.uk said: “If you get a spare five minutes over the Easter weekend, check the rate you’re currently getting on your existing ISAs. In many cases the interest may have been slashed and your nest egg may be stagnating in an account paying next to nothing.” The boss of oil giant BP saw his pay packet jump 13% to £9.5million last year.
Bob Dudley coined it in after the energy giant’s profits doubled due to rising oil prices. BP’s annual report showed Dudley got a £1.3m salary, £1m annual bonus, £5.5m in performance shares, plus pension perks and other add-ons. His haul would have been £12.5m had BP’s remuneration committee not changed its share award policy. Banking giant Barclays has been left with a £1.4billion bill for a mis-selling scandal in the run-up to the financial crisis.
It reached a settlement with the US Department of Justice over the sale of so-called mortgage-backed securities between 2005 and 2007 – notorious investment-based packages of home loans.
Barclays was accused of misleading investors over their quality.
Barclays’ boss Jes Staley called it a “fair and proportionate settlement”.
Two former Barclays’ executives have also reached a combined settlement of £1.4million. VW has pledged to buy back new diesel cars if German cities ban them.
The German car giant was seeking to reassure would-be owners and stem a plunge in sales of diesel vehicles.
Volkswagen also said it would extend incentives for new diesel car buyers. The moves come after a German court ruled cities could ban the most polluting diesel vehicles. Volkswagen might face calls to do the same in the UK as fears of diesel levies have hit sales here too. It comes as lawyers acting for VW owners in the UK gear up for a fight for compensation over the emissions scandal.