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Increased mortgages fail to boost economy

Paul — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:00:01 +0000

Even though people are buying a lot more houses than half a year ago, the money is not flowing through the economy the way it should. The number of loans rose from 53k to 56k proving that it’s the highest during the six months period, but borrowers are trying to repay the debts as soon as they car therefore net mortgage lending rose only by £900m.

Lending to the biggest British sector: non-finacial private corporations fell by £400m and now it stands very low. Hopefully it will stop falling by the end of the year, because banking really depends on it. In the mean time banks will try to push through to more customers to steadily pull the country from the crisis.

Couriers are taking over for Royal Mail

Paul — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:14:42 +0000

During the last two weeks UK retailers have started switching to private courier companies because of the Royal Mail employees strike. Most of the companies are afraid of consumers stopping to shop online, because of the delays and uncertainty behind Royal Mail. There is no wonder that RM has the best cost-to-service ratio for certain size of parcels, but the increased affection to RM forced retailers to use couriers even though the cost is higher.

On the other hand private couriers are happy to accept any overflow of work to be done that RM cannot do because of the strike and many of these companies are pretty sure that they have won their new clients for good. Definitely next weeks will prove whether this is true or not.

UK house prices are still rising

Paul — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:14:36 +0000

It has already been six months since house prices have started to rise. Very worrying state of the market have left us with uncertainty and continues to grow bad feelings about the economy. Accordingly to the closed watched index, the prices are still on the rise, but slower than during the summer, it’s slowing down. It is still 13.1 per cent form the peak which we have seen in 2007 but experts agree that the marked received a boost after the mortgages have been lowered after October 2007.

The very sluggish improvement in the time needed for the properties to become available on the market also means that there is a slowdown in the constructions area. Maybe this time development companies will learn how to build and finish their jobs properly.

Barclays buys Standard Life Bank

Paul — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:31:02 +0000

Barclays has started to make some really good moves recently. They already are getting stronger on the market, but this time they were granted a really good deal. Standard Life Bank was bought for much less than analysts expected, just £226m. Specialists estimated that the price the company was bought for its 23 per cent discounted and its standard value would be £293m.

Meanwhile Barclays have spotted a niche in the market for mortgages ad extended the mortgage share on the marked also increasing their profit. The shares fell last Friday by 2.45 per cent while Standard Life Bank share closed down 1.5 per cent.

Source: FT.com

Dell acquire Perot systems

Paul — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:32:20 +0000

Michael Dell, the owner of the worldwide IT service distribution company has recently announced a calculated bid of 3.9bn to buy Texas neighbours Perot systems. This would help lessen the competition Dell faces and would also help increase the total profit.

It is expected that current employees of Perot would keep their jobs as they already have the revelent training in that industry and it would also keep unemployment numbers down. If Dell become successful in their bid, not only will they be one of the leading IT services worldwide (even more than now) but they would also have a more widespread public following in Texas, where’s now the general public is split between the two companies.

Two big phone companies looking to join!

Paul — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:31:11 +0000

Two of the largest phone companies in the United Kingdom, T-Mobile (owned by Deutsche Telekom) and Orange (French Telekom) are looking to further their companies by merging as one. They both currently sit behind O2 and Vodafone, with Orange at 3^rd and T-Mobile in fourth. By joining together, the net profit is obviously expected to increase and both companies would total their profits 50/50, meaning they would have over 37% of the United Kingdom’s mobile phone user base. This expected statistic would make them the leading phone company in the United Kingdom (being 10% above O2).

Iphone gone Orange

Paul — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:30:20 +0000

The United Kingdom’s third largest mobile phone operator, Orange, has finally managed to exclusively sign a deal with Apple, ( the iPhone’s owners and creators) to sell the iPhone in Britain. This is going to be a massive setback for O2, the United Kingdom’s largest phone company (owning 27%), as they previously were the only company to have the rights.

Profits for Orange are expected to increase vastly and this deal is sure to please current and future Orange customers. The deal was agreed today and the popular Apple phone will be hitting many Orange stores nationwide within the upcoming weeks.

Car scrappage scene extended

Paul — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:29:13 +0000

The United Kingdom’s business secretary Peter Mandelson today announced that the car scrappage scheme would now be extended to cover a further 100,000 vehicles. Although this is only a small fraction of the number of cars needed in this scheme, the labour party member has assured that, although they can’t do everything, they can do something.

This scheme helps recycle old metal from unused cars in an attempt to reuse the scraps for new cars. It is expected to rise with the new year, with the labour government promising more and more ‘benefits’ to the general public in the coming weeks.

Small investors create a surge in trading

Paul — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:28:46 +0000

Only since the ‘dotcom boom’ have levels in trading surged to such a level. The smaller investors across the country have created huge surges in the trading industry, with auction site ebay and on-line stores play, Amazon and HMV all hugely increasing in profits.

This is a great help to reduce congested traffic on the road, which helps reduce the amount of petrol used daily (as individuals wouldn’t have to drive, pay for transport to reach the desired store) and is also a profit to potential buyers. Trading websites are often reached via posters in-store advertising the product offers etc.

Review into Debt Management Sector

admin — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:50:10 +0000

An independent review of the fee charging debt management sector has been published by the Money Advice Trust which highlights the rapid growth in this sector. According to the review in 1999 there were less than 40 companies who offered a debt management service and there are now over 150 companies in the UK. Money Advice said

“their findings had thrown up a great disparity in the way customers of these debt management companies were treated”

They welcomed a review by the Office of Fair Trading into this sector.
It also showed that many customers were unaware that a free service was also available and that if they had known, they would of rather gone with such service.