Remember PPI and Payday Loans? Well, here’s the latest financial scandal waiting in the wings to happen. The option to Buy Now, Pay Later pops up pretty much everywhere you shop online. Sounds great, interest-free, pay over months or even years. A no-brainer? Yes, if you have the cash to make your payments on time. But at the moment these deals ‘fall through the regulatory cracks’, so they generally only carry out minimal credit checks and don’t have to post big warnings about the small print. Which generally says that if you miss a payment (as nearly 50% eventually do), interest of 17% or more can be piled on and it goes on your credit record. Free lunches and all that.
“The true impact of inflation on cash savings and pensions”
Leaving your money in the bank or building society has always meant that its ‘real value’ after inflation will go down. Although rates go up to, supposedly, control inflation, any chart you look at will show that, apart from a few very short-term blips (N Lamont, I’m looking at you) they are never more than inflation.
