Published: 8/7/2010
The Bank of Scotland has a fantastic opportunity for first time buyers saving a deposit for their first home – doubled up savings.
The way this works is that savers who regularly deposit money into a Bank of Scotland savings account, up to a maximum amount saved of GBP5,000, will have the balance matched by the home builder Persimmon. The one proviso is that this only happens if the savings are used as a deposit on a new house.
A spokesman from the housebuilder saw it as making a real difference for first time buyers, though they would still need a considerable amount saved elsewhere in order to make the 25 percent minimum deposit most mortgage providers require. The Bank of Scotland are also in favour of the scheme as they want to help home buyers as much as they can.
A new Legal and General Portfolio bond will be available from 21 July, ideal for financial advisors to use when putting together an investment portfolio for their clients. Three different charging options are available, a wide choice of funds as well there being no charge to swap between different funds. Legal and General have listened to the needs of financial advisors and come up with a portfolio bond that seems to deliver what they have asked for. The different options provided by Legal and General also cater for different risk profiles along with the option to take regular withdrawals. All in all investors will find all their bases covered with this new bond offering.
The Abbey National has found that over sixty percent of UK holidaymakers have used savings to finance a holiday this year, while others are using the money to pay for a holiday before it even gets to the savings account. Over a quarter of people surveyed by the Abbey National felt that the best thing to do with the spare money they had was to use it to finance a holiday rather than put it into a savings account or other savings vehicle. A spokesman from the Abbey National suggested taking a little bit of the money that was being allocated to holidays and use it to build up some savings. This way the person gets their holiday but also begins to build a savings fund that may well prove essential in the future.
Barclays customers who applied for the Tax Haven Cash ISA have received apologies from the bank following significant delays before their accounts were opened. An apology is all they are going to receive though it appears as Barclays has stated it will not pay the interest that investors would have accrued if the accounts had been opened on time. It seems that a particularly heavy demand for the ISA created a number of administration difficulties for Barclays leading to delays in accepting applications and opening the accounts. Assuming the person applying for the Barclays ISA had invested the maximum allowed of GBP3,600, they would have lost around GBP9 in interest so far. This in one way is not a vast amount of money, but the underlying principle is of much greater importance. Multiplied by the number of people taking out this particular Tax Haven Cash ISA it also becomes a much larger sum. Compare rates on ISAs from Barclays and many others at Moneygossip.co.uk
