25 Apr 09 FirstPlus faces fierce criticism
Secured lender Firstplus, which has the television star Carol Vorderman advertising its loan products in glossy television advertisements, has been criticised over a loan offer that it has recently launched, which critics have described as a debt trap. The recently launched loan offers a discounted rate of interest for ninety days, enticing cash-strapped consumers to take out finance. However, after the ninety day period the interest rate on the loan nearly doubles, which means that consumers will be left having to pay huge sums of interest on their borrowing, having been drawn in by an initially enticing rate for just a short period of time.
The secured loan is only available to homeowners, as the finance is secured against the home. The initial interest rate that is offered to consumers starts at 4.9%. However, this is for ninety days only, and after this initial period the typical APR leaps to 8.5%. The minimum term of the personal loan is five years, and many consumers with less than perfect credit could end up paying a way higher rate than the typical 8.5% advertised.
The timing of the loan offer has also been slated, as it comes at a time when consumer debt levels are high, credit conditions are tight, and many lenders are reining in their lending. One official from the consumer campaign group Which? stated: ‘The initial rate is low enough to attract borrowers desperate for credit and who may be struggling to find it elsewhere. Yet 90 days offers negligible benefits and many people may not understand fully that the rate will soar in a very short time. This is a debt trap.’
Officials from the lender, FirstPlus, responded by stating: ‘Consumers don’t have many options at the moment and we are responding to this.’
28 Mar 09 Borrowers continue to try and transfer balances
The global credit crunch that has been affecting the UK’s financial markets has been making financial headlines since last summer, having wreaked havoc in all areas of the financial sector, including credit cards. However, despite the worsening credit crunch, which has deeply impacted on the availability of finance for consumers, it appears that many consumers are still falling over themselves in order to try and get a 0% balance transfer card onto which to transfer debts of high interest credit cards.
A recent report suggested that many 0% balance transfers no longer offered capped rates on their transfer fees, but this does not appear to have put consumers off, with nearly three quarters of a million cardholders trying to transfer a collective £1.1 billion every month. These figures are despite the fact that many credit card providers have tightened up on their lending criteria, and according to some industry officials around half a million consumers have a credit card application rejected every month in the UK.
The data suggests that many consumers are still facing crippling repayments on high interest debts, such as balances on expensive credit cards, and whilst many are flocking to try and transfer their balances on to 0% credit cards, thus benefiting from the opportunity to save a small fortune in interest on their debt, many will find that the increasingly stringent criteria in place from lenders will ruin their chances of being able to make this saving.
One industry official stated: ‘There is a significant market for cards offering balance transfers as our research indicates that 40% of card holders think it will take longer than one month to clear their current balance.’
16 Jul 08 Secured Loans from Leading Secured Loan Lenders
Looking to get a secured loan from a leading secure loan lender? Confused over which secured loan plan would be best suited for you? These are the common issues that a person looking for a secured loan usually faces. Fortunately, services like the one offered by accepted.co.uk, a service which lets an individual looking for a secured loan, search 100’s of secured loan plans from 12 of the leading secured loan lenders in the UK including First Plus, Nemo and GE Money, are available to help people. The best part of this service is that it is offered absolutely free of cost. Yes, you read that right. You do not have to pay a single penny for using this search service. There is no obligation whatsoever for those using this service. So if you are looking for the right secured loan plan, go ahead and use this secured loans search feature and identify the plan best suited for you.
19 Jun 08 Religare Enterprises to start Religare Bank?
Religare Enterprises when asked for a clarification by the stock exchanges on the news item which appeared in one of the leading pink papers, has replied back to the stock exchanges confirming plans of foraying into the banking industry. However, the announcement said that there were no concrete developments yet and that the company would inform the shareholders about the development at the right time. Lets wait for more details on the formation of Religare Bank.
19 Jun 08 Selecting the Right Credit Card
With so many different varieties of credit cards being available in the market, how does one select the right credit card. Banks offering credit cards typically list only their brand of credit cards for comparison in their website. Hence it would not be possible to compare credit cards offered by different banks; or so I thought until I found this site which lists the different Types of Credit Cards available in the market and allows for easy comparison between them. If you are looking at getting yourself a new credit card, make sure you use such a service to compare the offers, interest rates and charges charged by various credit cards and then select the one which best suits your needs.
14 May 08 American Express Credit Card Offers
To boost its credit card sales at a time when the US is in the middle of a recession, American Express has come out with various new and exciting credit card offers. The offers are valid on almost all types of amex credit cards like individual American Express credit cards, business credit cards and corporate credit cards. With so many offers, consumers typically tend to get confused on which the best offer is, in order to select the best suited credit card for themselves. To help individuals compare and select the right card there are certain websites which list all the offers currently available. Through such a website an individual can choose American Express credit card offers online. Thanks to such a service, a lot of time is saved for the consumer. It would be interesting to look at the business model of the websites offering such a service. These websites typically get paid per conversion. So, say you apply for a credit card through their website and your card is approved, the credit card company will pay the webmaster a fixed fee. There is no conflict of interest involved here since such websites don’t push people to buy a particular credit card. Hence the service is unbiased and very helpful for those looking to apply for a new credit card online.
29 Apr 08 Online Credit Card Feedback and Assistance
AllAboutCredit.net offers a useful service which answers all your queries related to credit cards. The site already has an extensive database of questions which have been answered by credit card experts. The site also provides online credit card feedback on almost all the credit cards available in the market. Credit card holders having any queries or issues related to any of their credit cards can first browse through the comprehensive list of qquestions answered by experts in the site’s question bank. If it is found that their query has not been answered previously, they can raise the question by using the simple form available on the website. The form has 3 fields, one each for name, email ID and the question. Questions are usually answered by experts with 48 hours of being posted. As mentioned earlier, the site also provides online credit card feedback on various types of credit cards and also recommends the best credit cards in each of the categories.
05 Nov 07 ICICI Bank penalised for hiring goons as recovery agents
In a major dent to the brand image of ICICI Bank, the Delhi Consumer Commission fined ICICI Bank a whooping Rs. 50 lakh for using goons, in the guise of recovery agents for recovering loans. This comes on the heals of the Supreme court verdict which has held banks responsible for the acts of the recovery agents employed by them. The consumer commission acted on a complaint lodged by Tapan Bose who alleged that ICICI Bank’s recovery agents beat up his friend’s son with a Iron rod and forcibly took away his Car, which was bought through a loan taken from ICICI Bank.
21 Aug 07 ICICI Financial Services Stake Sale : ICICI Bank gets FIPB approval
ICICI Bank has finally received approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) to sell 24% stake in its subsidiary ICICI Financial Services. ICICI Bank was awaiting FIPB approval to sell stake in ICICI Financial Services to foreign investors. Though ICICI Bank has now obtained the FIPB approval, it sill requires the reserve bank of India’s (RBI) approval to sell stake in ICICI Financial Services.
