Category: Economy & Lifestyle & Uncategorized
According to Business Insider magazine, Greeceâs economic woes began in the 4th Century BC, a time when Plato and Aristotle were alive. Thirteen Greek city-states borrowed from the Temple of Delos, but most of the borrowers defaulted and the Temple lost 80% of the money it loaned.
Category: Lifestyle & Uncategorized
A new publication by the British Banking Association (BBA) has estimated that consumers taking advantage of contactless cards have together saved over 90 years of time since they were introduced! The publication says that on average it takes half a second to âwave and payâ by contactless card, while it takes seven seconds to pay by chip and PIN. Figures from the UK Cards Association show there were 452,912,149 contactless transactions from the period that contactless payment was introduced, up until the end of 2014. The figures mean that 93.6 years have been saved when paying over this period!
Category: Lifestyle & Protection & Uncategorized
Brits consider an internet connection and mobile phones to be greater financial priorities than protecting mortgages and incomes, according to new research in the latest Scottish Widows Protection Report. Only 39% considered providing financial security for their family in the event of death as essential â which has dropped from more than half in four years â compared to eight out of 10 (80%) who considered broadband and mobile phones (71%) essential for daily living.
Category: Lifestyle & retirement & savings & Uncategorized
New research in Spring 2015 from Aegon UK reveals that just 7% of the UK population are on track for the retirement they aspire to, exactly the same percentage as in April 2014. Aegonâs third UK Readiness Report â the latest in a series of reports that looks at attitudes towards retirement â has a particular focus on levels of engagement with workplace pensions. It finds that the nationâs âreadiness scoreâ has actually fallen over 12 months from 52 to 47. The people surveyed said that they wanted to retire at age 63, contributing to the falling score, as peopleâs expectations about the amount of money they hope to retire on each year rose from ÂŁ35,000 to ÂŁ42,000, despite the fact that this would require a saving pot of more than ÂŁ1m, a sum higher than the new pension lifetime allowance.
Category: Lifestyle & pensions & Uncategorized
Retiring abroad is a common desire for many in the UK. For those that move to the sunny Mediterranean countries of the EC their UK state pension is preserved and increased each year. If you move to the United States, it is preserved and again increases each year in line with state pensions paid in the UK. This is not the case for every destination however, and the International Consortium of British Pensioners (ICBP) has said the UK is the only country in the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD) that does not âup-rateâ their state pension for all pensioners regardless of where they live.
Category: Lifestyle & Uncategorized
The A-level results come out on Thursday, August 14th and thousands of teenagers up and down the country will be looking forward to starting university in September. Their parents, however, might be gloomily looking at their bank accounts and taking a rather different view.
