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As the new registration approaches we are starting to see more deals being offered by the dealerships, supported by the manufacturers. So is it always best to look for 0% finance deals? As I’ve mentioned before much of the advice provided by the national and trade press suggests that you should maybe avoid the 0% deals and negotiate a better Read more »

During many of my discussions and presentations it is often clear that those using vehicle finance or personal loans think that there is some sort of master format that means they don’t have to bother reading it. Those that may understand that this isn’t the case may ask which terms are important, the ones they need to read? Whether it is only necessary to understand the terms in a lease as opposed to a personal loan. The fact is that EVERY term in a contract is important and should be read and Read more »

I have mixed views over my next piece. You see over the years I have recommended to clients that they make use of the law wherever they can to save money. One area that I have heavily promoted is covered by sections 99 and 100 of the Consumer Credit Act, better known as Voluntary Termination, whereby once you have paid half the total cost of the finance, you can simply hand the car back to the HP provider and they have to stand any loss between what would normally be required to Read more »

Andrew Sentance may not be a name that you have come across before but he is very important in our lives. He sits on the Monetary Policy Committee in the Bank of England. They sit each month and decide whether base rate should stay the same, at 0.5% or increase. Since the rate dropped to 0.5% every member of the committee has voted to keep it at the same level, that is until the October meeting at which Mr Read more »

I have issued another general warning about the lack of money available to lend and the subsequent repercussions. I have had many people writing to me explaining that they had strong credit but have been declined for loans on several occasions and are now being told that they have dropped into the sub-prime category, which means they will pay high rates of interest if they are able to secure finance at all. The reason for this is the fact that whilst there are still lenders willing to offer low rates Read more »

One of the constant questions I get asked is if the bank rate is at 0.5% why are personal loans running at around 8% – 10% and HP can be much more than that? Well unless you are a banker or you have a tracker mortgage the bank rate is pretty meaningless and this has always been the case when interest rates have been running at a pretty low level. The fact is that the interest a lender charges is his income. He might have a few fees that bolster up his admin costs but he still has his overhead costs to Read more »

The Treasury Select Committee has questioned whether individuals should be charged for copies of their credit report. At the moment it costs £2 or you can obtain a copy for free but it requires you to apply online to one of the credit reference agencies, provide credit card details as though you were going to pay monthly for anytime access, then cancel as soon as you’ve downloaded your current report, Read more »

If you have an iPhone – you poseur, I don’t of course, but if you do there are now apparently ‘apps’ for just about everything – so I’ve been told. Apps. standing for applications or software programs. One of the latest ‘apps’ comes from a company called Wonga who provide what are known as ‘payday loans’, allowing people to borrow a sum of several hundreds of pounds to tide you over till payday. But what has Read more »

A few years ago I was a consultant to Yes Car Credit, a company that I hugely respected because, in many ways, they got it right! However, becoming the UK’s largest seller of used cars in about 4 years carried with it a number of problems that the UK press, as always, was eager to pounce upon. The company was selling nearly 50,000 cars per annum at the point of its demise and I would admit that the combination of Read more »

It was earlier this year when I warned that money was tight in the vehicle finance sector that would mean only the squeakiest of clean business would be written. In some instances I heard that acceptances were down to just 20% of applicants, not because the vast majority of applicants were poor credit risks but available funds meant this was the maximum number of applicants that could be accepted. Many Read more »