Today Loan Blog

It is becoming more and more expensive to lead a healthy lifestyle.  The cost of eating and drinking healthily is going up.  The price of fresh fruit and vegetables is sky high, as is the cost of pure mineral water, soft drinks and juices.  However the cost of unhealthy items such as sugar, confectionary and chocolate has dropped.  The overall cost of food and drink rose by 1% between June and July this year.

It is estimated that food accounts for 12 % of household spending in the UK.  As times are tight for all of us, we are forced to buy the things that are cheap and affordable.  Unfortunately these are usually the things that are bad for us. 

Consumers spending power is tight because prices are rising and wages are staying the same or in some cases deceasing.  Unfortunately this could lead to people borrowing instant cash in order to just pay for their shopping bill.

It was announced today that a  task force of representatives of U.K. banks and the British Bankers’ Association will try to come up with ways of ensuring that U.K. businesses with have the access they need to long  term finance and instant cash loans they need to aid their recovery. Stephen Green, the chairman of London HSBC Holdings and the BBA says that the the team includes a “steering group” comprising of the CEO of the six largest U.K. banks.  The task force aims to report its findings by early October.

He went on to say in his letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer “We agree with you the essential importance of ensuring that credit is available to viable businesses and particularly for the recovery”. The task force will “assess the demand for business finance” and “make recommendations on those areas which relate to the liquidity and the funding of the banking system which are directly material to the provision of business finance,” he wrote.

Mervyn King, Governor of  the Bank of England said on July 28 that access to credit is “a particular problem” (see previous posts for more) for small and medium-size businesses and Osborne said this month that banks have an “economic obligation” to lend to small businesses. The announcement of the formation of the taskforce was in July.

Green wrote that “work streams” will include representatives from the U.K. Treasury, the Bank of England and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The areas covered by the task force will also include trade-finance and business-aid proposals, the letter said. The CEOs of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Barclays Plc, Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Santander U.K., Standard Chartered Plc and HSBC will comprise the steering group, BBA spokeswoman Lesley McLeod said by telephone.

Today George Osbourne, the current finance minister, said the banks in the UK should boost business lending with their first-half profits. This comes after many of the previous ailing banks have dramitically recovered after a cash injection using public money.

In his interview in the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Osborne said he thought that the banks should concentrate on helping medium and small-sized businesses rather than pay large cash bonuses to bank management and staff.

This follow reports that first-half earnings for all the large banks, to be are announced next week, excepted to be large. 

In 2008 The Bank of England lent British banks almost $312 billion.  Mr Osbourne said he hoped the Bank of England would back him on his stance and called on the banks to set aside profits and ensure they could pay emergency central bank loans that were given to them during the economic crisis. The loans are due next year.

Mr Osborne told interviewers: “We have got to be pretty clear with the banks, as I was when I got them into my office a couple of weeks ago, that we will not tolerate banks piling the pressure on small and medium-sized enterprises. They have an economic obligation to assist that sector and give it all the assistance that they can. ”

Osborne also said the banks’ business lending had become highly restrictive, with many small businesses being asked for additional collateral or mortgages over their personal property in order to continue with overdrafts.

Personal Lending and Payday Loans have also has a similar problem although not to the same extent.

Interesting news in the finance world today.

I just thought i’d give you a little hint about the new changes that will be happening to Today Loan in the near future.

We have a new lender coming join our ever-growing panel of lenders. This new lender is a new comer to the area of short-term finance and payday loans but has extensive knowledge of finance in general. They are one of the market leaders in the secured loan sector.

Also we have a cool new feature on the way. We’ll have a Loan calculator coming soon where you can choose the amount you’re like to borrow (up to £1,000) and exactly how many days you’d like to borrow it for and it will instantly tell you how much you’ll be paying back. Since we have a huge panel of lenders this won’t be 100% accurate but will give you a clear idea of what you’ll be paying back. We like to keep things clear and simple.

More on this soon.

Thanks,

Derek

The Office of Fair Trading recently warned that creating a  caps on APR for payday loans would not actually help the borrower.

The government watchdog said that APR is not that meaningful when it comes to short term finance and putting a cap on it could actually reduce the consumer’s credit options. They also said more needed to be done to help consumers make more informed decisions when taking out short-term finance.

As part of it’s review the OFT said that part of the problem was consumers lack of choice due to the unavailability of mainstream finance options. Payday Advance products are typically used by people on low income who cannot access mainstream credit and who borrow small sums for short periods.

The OFT said: ‘In a number of respects, these markets work reasonably well in that they serve borrowers not catered for by mainstream suppliers, complaint levels are low, and there is evidence that for some products, lenders do not levy charges on customers who miss payments or make payments late.’

OFT director of the credit group, said: ‘The report has found that people who use short-term credit have limited options and find it difficult to exercise what choice they have to obtain the best deal. This means that competition between suppliers is less effective than it might be’.

They also added ‘We would hope that the government would be careful and take heed of these arguments against price capping when it considers the short term credit industry.’

Today Loan aims to give you the best choice possible. We do the searching for you and we have a huge array of options.

Welcome to our new blog.

Let me start but thanking you for taking the time to read about our website. The aim of this blog is to keep you up to date with changes in the world of finance. Primarily it will be focused on changes in the market place and how these will effect borrowers  and lenders.

First up we have some exciting news. For the last few months we have been developing a new system that will make it even easier for the customer to get a payday loan (also known as payday advance). We call this new system Lead Affinity and the aim of it is simple. It will take the details of a customer’s application and carefully calculate the most appropriate lender is given criteria and the current situation of the   borrower. When you apply for a payday loan through Today Loan or any other site powered by Lead Affinity you’ll certainly see the difference.

That’s all for now. More soon…

Today Loan