Payment protection insurance, nuisance calls and pensions

Big banks are expected to take another £2 billion hit on payment protection insurance this week because of the longer time allowed for new claims, according to The Times. Lenders will make the provisions with quarterly results that will be scrutinised for the impact of Brexit on the economy, while the weakening pound and heightened market activity will also have an affect on results. The new PPI bill is a blow for banks, which had thought that the end was in sight for Britain’s largest mis-selling scandal when the Financial Conduct Authority said in June that it was minded to back their calls for a cut-off for compensation. The FCA has put the deadline at mid-2019, not 2018 as the industry had hoped. Nuisance calls

Company directors could be fined up to £500,000 if their business is behind nuisance phone calls, under government moves to clamp down on the problem.

The law is to be changed in Spring 2017 to make directors personally liable for breaches of regulations. At the moment only firms can be fined for ignoring rules on cold calling, but many declare bankruptcy – only to open up again under a different name. Consumer group Which? said it was a ‘massive victory’. Housing

Homeowners are paying up to £600,000 over the odds to live in the UK’s most popular market towns, according to the Daily Mail.

Homes in the picturesque villages can come at a premium of up to 160 per cent to the average house price in their county, research has revealed. The houses in almost one in five British market towns are at least £100,000 more expensive than the average property in their county.

Figures from Lloyds Bank show that the price of a market town property has risen by an eye-watering £546 a month for the past decade. Pensions

Scaling back final salary pension payouts to savers could be an option to help firms at risk of going bust, an influential industry body has suggested.

Thisismoney reports that ‘flexibility’ over benefits – including reductions in extreme cases – merging smaller final salary schemes and overhauling the regulatory regime are among ideas floated to ease strains on employers and the economy by a taskforce launched by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association.

Its report was published as pensions consultant JLT Employee Benefits pushed a separate plan – letting retirees already drawing a guaranteed final salary pension transfer out and take advantage of pension freedoms – which it described as ‘a win-win’ for employers and the Government.

Current accounts

Current account switchers have received an estimated £243 million in ‘golden hellos’ over the last three years, an average of £79 per switcher, but risk eroding the incentive away because the cost of dipping into the red with some providers is so high, according to research from The Co-operative Bank.

Competition for current account switching has seen over three million people switch accounts in the past three years, with many tempted by attractive switching offers.

However, despite these headline offers giving real cash benefits for many switchers, for the one in three (32 per cent) who rely on an overdraft to support their day-to-day spending, these initial incentives are likely to have been eroded away by overdraft charges.

Energy bills

New figures show almost 900,000 homeowners owe their gas and electricity supplier money in unpaid energy bills, even before the seasonal thermostat adjustment kicks in, according to The Independent.

Households that are behind on their bills – around 5 per cent of the UK population, according to Gocompare.com – owe an average of more than £120 each. Energy providers are already owed about £103 million, but it transpires that just one in ten bill payers who are in arrears stay in touch with their provider to help keep on top of the situation during financially straitened times.