MONEY MORSELS
Popular plastic
SOME 78 pc of all spending in shops is now done on debit and credit cards. The UK Cards Association predicts that, by 2024, £901 billion per year will be spent on cards.
Repossession fall
MORE than 10,000 homes were repossessed in 2015 — half as many as the year before. A further 101,000 homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.
Cheap loans
POST Office has slashed its interest rate on personal loans between £7,500 and £25,000 to 4.4 pc.
On a £7,500 loan taken over two years, monthly payments would be £170 and the total cost including interest charges £8,179.
Mobile web perk
MOBILE phone users with Carphone Warehouse’s iD network can now rollover any internet allowance they don’t use to the next month.
This is useful for customers who use more data some months than others. If you don’t use the rollover allowance the following month, you’ll lose it.
Lost passports
THE Foreign and Commonwealth Office issued 37,890 emergency travel documents to Britons abroad between April 2014 and March 2015 — a fifth more than the year before.
The cost of replacing a passport while abroad is £167.50. yet one in ten single-trip travel insurance policies won’t cover this type of emergency, according to Gocompare.
Help to downsize
SANTANDER is making it easier for people to extend their interestonly loans.
It will now accept downsizing to a smaller property as your stated plan to repay the debt if you have at least £150,000 of equity in your home.
This should allow older borrowers who have benefited from surging house prices to stay in their homes for longer.
Statement angst
TWO in five workers say they would be too embarrassed to show someone else their bank statements.
A quarter believe they would not be approved for a loan or credit card without drastically improving their spending habits first, according to figures from the AA.
Closing pensions
ONE in five companies offering employees generous final- salary pensions says they will close down the schemes as a result of new government rules.
These force firms to pay a higher rate of National Insurance to provide their workers with the same perks, according to the Association of Accounting Actuaries.
Blue rewards
BARCLAYS customers using the bank’s Blue rewards scheme will get double cashback until February 29. SmartSpend — Barclays’ own cashback website — offers up to 6 pc cashback for customers shopping online.
Those using Blue rewards usually get an extra 1 pc on top but will now get a 2 pc bonus.