Looking at the base rate being held unchanged this week Legal and General are forecasting a difficult Summer for borrowers as lenders take a cautious approach.
It is the view of Legal and General, as well as many other observers, that financial institutions went overboard with lending when money was cheap and easy to get hold of. Now they are going overboard the other way by being ultra cautious when lending to anyone.
Consumers will hope that something shifts in the market to free up money to cover general living expenses in some instances, where people have borrowed to maintain a standard of living and can no longer gain access to credit. Legal and General are not expecting that to happen as the cautious approach is maintained.
Marks and Spencer Money has received the award for best unsecured personal loan provider by Your Money Direct.
It was felt that Marks and Spencer provide several highly competitive unsecured personal loans as well as making it easy for potential customers to work out repayment amounts and select the option that best suits them. M&S also received awards for their credit cards and travel insurance showing just how focused they are on their financial services offerings.
A Marks and Spencer spokesman made it clear that the award was very special to them but that it did not mean there would be any complacency in future. It is always the aim of M&S to deliver great products that offer real value for money and this will continue.
According to an ICICI Bank spokesman the business is expecting to see an increase in loans provided running through the third and fourth quarters of the financial year.
The bank are confident that their commercial arm will be bringing in a large volume of loan business, with an expectation of twenty percent growth in the consumer sector too. This large growth expectation is fuelled by the reduction in interest rates they have applied, where home loans, car and personal loans have all seen their repayment rates reduced.
The commercial sector is forecast to see growth of around sixty percent according to information coming out of the ICICI Bank, driven primarily by the offering of new product lines to this market. Options will include a number of insurance products, new loan offerings and more banking facilities.
The bank feel that small to medium enterprises in India do not have enough options to meet their varied needs and so are happy to support them with these new products.
