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Data released by the British Bankers Association this week has revealed consumers are saving more money than last year, rising by 5.8 per cent from the previous August. They’re also shunning savings accounts for ISAs and it’s easy to see why. To beat inflation, basic tax rate payers need to find an account that pays more the 3.14 per cent and higher rate taxpayers 4.18 per cent – no easy task when the best buys are typically lower than that.
This data coincides with news that complaints about banks have risen by 59 per cent. Although PPI complaints are skewing the data a bit, apparently there is increasing concern from consumers about savings accounts, loans and credit cards too.
At rebuildingsociety.com all this tells us that people are slowly realising that savings accounts are not worth having at the moment (according to Watchdog the average interest rate is hanging around at 0.94 per cent) and are looking for better returns. However, the ISAs that these savers are targeting don’t do much better and you can still only add a finite amount each year.
Individuals with investment portfolios will probably be as frustrated as anyone else who’s looking to make their cash work hard for them in the recession. Property investment isn’t what it used to be and retail banking products simply don’t offer good enough returns.
Many will have a diverse portfolio including businesses they have invested considerable cash and expertise in, but they might also have cash lying in ISAs and savings accounts that’s drifting along gradually shedding value.
With returns of 12 per cent plus realisable through crowdfunding and the model designed to spread risk over multiple small investments, £10,000 or £100,000 in an account going nowhere could quickly turn into a healthy passive income.
Exclusive Ltd owner Mark Ions and his team know a thing or two about one of the most competitive industries in the UK. All of Exclusive’s senior team have previously managed recruitment teams and businesses, so understanding what makes the two elements of the recruitment process, the client and the candidate tick, is central to Exclusive’s ethos.
Values
“Recruitment can be a transactional industry”, says Mark. “I’ve found the best way to deliver results that make everyone happy – that’s the client, candidate and recruiter, not just the guy who has pocketed the fee – is to invest time into every part of the process.
“Some recruiters can see candidates as a commodity and the means to earn a fee. We work with candidates to make sure we’re working in their best interests; this includes giving them career advice and taking an honest approach. We try to maintain a 50/50 balance in the way we approach clients and candidates and always ask ourselves whether we’re making ethical decisions that serve everyone involved.”
While every business is a numbers game, Mark and his team don’t prescribe to the idea of consultants phoning twenty clients a day and firing out mailshots all the time: “I’ve been there and seen that it doesn’t work, while all the time your reputation is cheapened. I would much rather sit down in front of a client for an hour and truly understand their strategy and why they’re recruiting people.”
Growth
It’s a stance that has served Mark well as the company looks set to expand with a new office in Aberdeen, a city with a high wealth per capita ratio, and new divisions, including executive search, engineering and technical teams. (more…)
Today Vince Cable announced that the much-anticipated ‘business bank’ will be up and running within 18 months and will operate via existing lenders.
Unfortunately, many SMEs won’t be able to wait that long for finance, while the news that it will be available through existing lenders will not be a source of comfort for people either, as many have become disillusioned with trying to raise cash the traditional way.
Vince Cable is a man who knows his apples and is clearly trying to do what he can to stimulate the economy, but people are bound to be frustrated by the setup timeframes, with the public having to wait until the publication of the autumn statement in December for details of how the bank will be funded and operated.
In the meantime we suggest those SMEs look to other sources, like crowdfunding, to access cash.
Julian Wells, rebuildingsociety.com’s Marketing Adviser and Head of Introducer Channel, is a personal advocate of the peer to peer lending model after making a series of mini investments over the past two years. In this post he talks about his peer to peer lending experience and why he believes the peer to business model has the potential to be even more fulfilling.
“Have you put any of your savings into peer to peer lending yet? The chances are you haven’t, and if you have then it was most likely because someone you know encouraged you to.
That’s human nature. We’re all more likely to try something new if we know someone who has already done it and had a good experience. I first tried this form of lending just over 2 years ago and I’ve had a great experience, so much so that I thought I’d blog about it.
When I first heard about peer to peer lending I was sceptical. Why would I lend my money to other people who I’ve never met rather than putting it in the bank? What if they don’t pay me back? But someone I knew and trusted said they’d been doing it for a few months and were enjoying rates of over 6%, so I decided to give it a go. (more…)
When marketing a product, having a suitably sized target audience is a must. But there’s no sweat on Steve Brookes, owner of SkinKind (UK) Ltd, who manufactures natural skincare products to treat sufferers of serious skin complaints:
“Twenty per cent of the UK’s population suffer from the likes of psoriasis, acne, eczema and dermatitis – we have a lot of people to aim at”, he says.
And SkinKind has recently begun to tap into that market of over twelve million people, selling direct to the consumer, but more prominently through the NHS as GPs prescribe the product to those suffering with serious skin complaints.
Effectiveness
So why should GPs prescribe SkinKind? Steve has a compelling argument: “First of all it is more successful than the steroid treatments commonly prescribed. We’re looking at 95 per cent plus of those who suffer from dermatitis seeing their hands return to a normal state with no side effects. (more…)
rebuildingsociety.com wholeheartedly endorses the comments of the FSB’s chairman John Walker today, who revealed 42 per cent of companies that applied for finance through traditional funding routes in the last quarter were turned down.
Drawing conclusions from the findings Walker said: “Small businesses want to grow and invest but they need a helping hand to do so. It is frustrating that bank finance is still difficult to get. (more…)
The credit crunch shook up everyone’s perspective of where money is safe. At the time property values plummeted deriding the ‘safe as houses’ myth and since then savings rates have hit rock bottom. So where is your money safe?
Although the government will guarantee £85,000 of savings, the honest answer is nowhere, especially if you consider money that doesn’t earn enough interest to match inflation is effectively losing value and there are many people whose table-topping introductory savings rates have turned to mush and now bring in less than 0.5 per cent of interest.
So where should people invest their cash for an adequate return? (more…)
Your bank likes business credit cards and overdrafts and they love it when businesses use them. They’re high margin products and many organisations appreciate the ease at which cash can be accessed, and with many pushed for the time to properly evaluate the costs of this lending, it’s silently draining the resources of SMEs across the UK.
But what can be done about it? Companies need cash to operate; there are bills to pay, staff to hire and without it many would shut down. (more…)
The popular Dragons’ Den returned to our screens this week and in among the nervous pitches and thorough dismantling of the best laid business plans were the usual requests for finance to get businesses of the ground.
The dragons might not have given the time of day to many of the products, some of them are picked by the producers for their entertainment value, but equally, sometimes you feel a product has potential, just not enough to justify thousands of pounds from a single investor on the strength of a short pitch. (more…)